Yellow Ribbon
by Zea T
Summary: Something is very wrong on the Ark, but why is Bluestreak the only one to notice, and what's happened to Jazz and Prowl? G1, story now complete.
1. Bluestreak: Echoes

_Title:_ **Yellow Ribbon**

_Universe:_ G1

_Rating:_ T / PG-13

_Characters:_ Jazz, Prowl, Ark Ensemble, Soundwave, Starscream

_Warnings:_ Hurt/comfort, angst, scenes of torture, assumed J/P (non-explicit)

_Summary: _

Something is very wrong on the Ark, but why is Bluestreak the only one to notice, and what's happened to Jazz and Prowl?

_Disclaimer:_

This is a work of fan fiction, based on the 1984 (G1) _Transformers_ cartoon series, which was based in turn on the successful toy line of the same name. The _Transformers_ brand is owned by Hasbro. All characters and situations are used without permission, and without profit to the author.

_Author Note:_

This eleven chapter, Jazz- and Prowl-centric story is set close to the start of G1 season two. I've assumed a few items of fanon which I can't find a canon reference – Prowl/Jazz for starters, but also the concept of spark-bonding, a kindred between Praxians and Seekers, and the idea that Vos (original home of the Seekers) was a flying city. I'm sure I've encountered all of those concepts from multiple sources, but can't identify their origin, so my apologies and thanks to the originators.

I'm posting this daily, here and to my live journal (see the 'homepage' link on my profile) if anyone prefers to read it there. Many thanks to Dawnnsgrace for agreeing to beta this story while so busy herself – any remaining errors are, of course, my own. Spelling and grammar are British. Comments, constructive criticisms and reviews of any kind are very welcome, no matter how short, and I'd be happy to have any errors pointed out.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 1: Bluestreak – Echoes<strong>

Bluestreak's footsteps echoed, sharp and clear, down the hallways of the abnormally quiet Ark. His head rang with them, just adding to the processor ache that lingered from the afternoon's crew meeting. Even dimmed, the lights of the corridor sent throbbing pain through his processor.

Bluestreak's only consolation was that bad as he was feeling, he'd gotten off lightly compared to some. With half its mechs still confined to their berths, and the rest grouching and aching through the tail end of this widespread virus, the Ark felt quieter and emptier than Bluestreak had ever known it.

That was bad.

Silence was rarely a good thing in the young gunner's world. Silence tended to be filled, and without other distractions it was sometimes all Bluestreak could do to talk his way past the memories that filled it – both nightmare flashes that he recognised as very real, and the elaborate constructs of death and disaster his overactive imagination had built around them.

The thought alone was enough to unsettle him, and he walked a little faster, his pale grey door-wings twitching nervously behind him. They settled miserably to his back as he walked into the Rec Room, a sinking sensation gripping his spark as he realised the place was empty.

Venting, he wandered over to the energon dispenser anyway. As much as he hated being in this large, sociable space alone, his growling tank was making its displeasure known. He had honestly intended to refuel at some point today, but one thing after another had come up. He'd even fetched a cube on his way in after last night's patrol, only to hand it over to Hound when he'd realised the scout was too wobbly to leave their shared cabin without fuelling. After that, well he'd cut his recharge cycle close enough to the crew meeting that there hadn't been time to grab a replacement, and he'd honestly felt too unsettled when the meeting ended to do more than sketch a vague wave at his friends, and head straight out for his swing-shift patrol.

He couldn't help wishing now that he'd delayed a little and caught the opportunity to speak to someone – Hound, Trailbreaker, Ironhide even. At least then he'd know if it was just him, or whether anyone else was feeling the dark, creeping sense of wrongness that had taken such a tight hold over his spark.

Sipping his much-delayed energon with little enthusiasm, Bluestreak gazed sightlessly across the darkened Rec Room. It was hard to pin down just what about the meeting had bothered him so badly. He just knew that something was far from right.

It wasn't as if anything aboard the Ark could be called 'normal' precisely. The monthly all-crew gathering itself had been held almost a week late, delayed by the virulent virus that, according to Ratchet's report, had now affected every mech aboard. It wasn't a big drama really – no worse than a childhood malady on Cybertron, perhaps exacerbated a little by whatever the long post-crash stasis had done to their systems. It was still bad enough.

Bluestreak, the only one of his frame type around to contract the virus, had been amongst the least badly affected. His mild response to this infection rivalled even Ratchet's medic-firewalled aches and pains. Sunstreaker, Sideswipe and some of the mini-bots had been hit the worst. In fact, as of this morning, the Ark's red and gold twin terrors were the only 'bots still under observation in Medbay. The rest had been ordered back to their own berths - to recuperate, and to give Ratchet a chance to do likewise.

Things were definitely improving. But it had taken a solid orn from the first mechs exhibiting what Sparkplug called 'flu-like' symptoms to reach the point where every officer and a majority of the crew were up and about and able to attend the monthly briefing. Most of those were still groggy enough that Optimus had banned their human friends from the Ark for their own safety. The last thing anyone needed right now was having to watch their feet lest the _squishies_ live up to their Decepticon nickname.

The absence of the humans, and the still berth-bound mechs, was part of the wrongness, Bluestreak was sure. This crew was too close knit not to worry when others were in pain, even if Ratchet assured everyone that the processor-aches, seizing servos and faulty thermo-regulation would soon pass, and weren't all that serious in the grand scheme of things.

Medical's report had taken up most of the meeting. Red Alert took up most of the rest, his security briefing alternating between laments on their poor state of readiness and smug observations that even with the mechs at their weakest, the Ark's extensive defences had discouraged any hint of a Decepticon assault. True, the Autobots had been unable to turn out for one incident – a minor scuffle reported a few states away – but no one was faulting them for that. Bluestreak and the few others on active duty at the time had felt no inclination to intervene in what looked to be internal Decepticon politics.

Thankfully, Ironhide, speaking for the assault squads, and Wheeljack, taking a turn for the science team since Perceptor was still too light-sensitive to leave his cabin, kept their reports short and to the point. The junior officers too kept their statements concise, although that might have had more to do with lingering confusion after the virus than anything else. Bumblebee and Mirage had seemed genuinely unsure which of them was meant to be giving the Special Ops report, while Trailbreaker paused several times during his tactical summary, reading his notes over as if content less than a month old was utterly unfamiliar to him.

All in all, Bluestreak hadn't been the only mech relieved when Optimus dismissed them. But he'd been the only one looking around with a frown, trying to shake the feeling that something important had been left unsaid, and something vital missed.

That feeling hadn't faded, and increasingly, Bluestreak felt the urge to talk it over with someone before his processor imploded under the pressure. His door-wings twitched, the residual effects of even his mild viral dose sending random impulses to his motor controls. His ankle spasmed, the tip of his pede jerking up before dropping back to the deck with a metallic clatter. Mindful of Ratchet's advice that the best way to avoid the spurious impulses was to ensure their systems got plenty of real instructions to compare them with, Bluestreak vented a sigh and started walking.

* * *

><p>He wasn't entirely sure how he ended up on the Officers' Corridor, but he hesitated, pausing outside one of the two unused offices that bracketed Prime's. Whether his feet had carried him here by chance, or whether it was under some unconscious instruction from his aching processor, something told Bluestreak that there was an answer to his dilemma here, if only he could find it. More than ever, he was desperate for someone to talk to, and instinct told him that he'd come here with that in mind. He just had no idea why.<p>

Red Alert's office was empty, the Security Director pulling double shifts on the command deck while the medical emergency lasted. Ironhide's was equally dark, and Bluestreak recalled the armoury officer grumbling his way berth-wards after the meeting, complaining about 'old bones' he did not, in fact, possess.

The only hint of life in the corridor was the sliver of light spilling around Optimus Prime's office door, but that hardly explained Bluestreak's impulse to come here, or desire to stay. Even if Optimus hadn't been up to his chest-plates in admin work, and burning the midnight oil to stay on top of the drifts of data-pads, Bluestreak wouldn't have dreamed of disturbing his commander, his _Prime_, with something so inconsequential.

No, he thought, leaning against the wall outside Prime's office and staring at the door opposite. There was something else… or someone else?

Bluestreak deactivated his optics, trying to listen to the echoes in his processor. Somewhere, on the edge of hearing, was a melodic voice. Tilting his helm, optics still dark, Bluestreak thought he caught a glimpse of a blue visor, and the twitch of elegant door-wings.

A visor? Door-wings?

Bluestreak's optics blazed into life with a flare that lit the corridor. His vents hitched, uncertainty and confusion filling him. His processor ache, dulled for a while by the fresh energon, now worsened by the second as he scrabbled for the door controls in front of him. The empty office next to Prime's would be dark, quiet. It would give him a chance to catch his breath and figure out what in the Pit was wrong with him.

He whimpered when the door didn't open, just one more confusion piled on top of the roiling mess that seemed ready to burst from his helm. Why would an empty office be locked? It wasn't until he asked the question that the strangeness of it struck him. Why the Pit was there an empty office next to Prime's in the first place? On an Ark half-crushed by their crash landing, on which every mech but Prime and Ratchet shared a cabin with somebody, how could there be not one but two offices left vacant on this well-used corridor?

Head spinning, Bluestreak pressed his helm to the cool metal of the door. His legs felt wobbly, his balance centre presenting him with an urgent request that he find a chair and sit in it. For a brief moment he considered trying the second room, only to dismiss the idea out of hand. Jazz kept his office door locked, even when he was inside.

Bluestreak's vents stalled. His spark throbbed in his chest as sudden, dawning horror swept over him. The name brought images with it – black and white plating, a cheerful grin and a visor that swept over Bluestreak, missing nothing even as its owner laughed and joked. Bluestreak's optics blinked out as his processor focussed on that inner vision. He was almost afraid to follow the elegant hand that rested on Jazz's shoulder up to a second black and white figure, head tilted to look fondly at its companion, door-wings held high but relaxed.

"Prowl!" Bluestreak whispered the name, his voice lost in the static that accompanied the memories. He was swept away in the flood of them, drowning in the sudden influx. Guilt wracked him, sheer horror at the thought of forgetting his mentors… and a profound and deepening dread.

He remembered the pair of them leaving the Ark, Jazz excited by the prospect of a tri-state school tour, Prowl wing-twitchingly nervous but smiling nonetheless. He had no memory of their return.

He raised a fist, hammering on Prowl's closed door, desperate just to know what he'd forgotten. The door remained closed, no sign that anyone within might have heard his increasingly loud cries and pounding demands for entry. Switching tack, Bluestreak darted along the corridor to assault Jazz's door instead.

His processor played the afternoon's meeting over again, adding to Bluestreak's fear and confusion. Trailbreaker, Mirage, even Prime – no one had mentioned their missing officers even once. They'd just… continued. As if… as if they'd already accepted that Jazz and Prowl were gone.

No! No, Bluestreak couldn't and wouldn't accept that. He had to know what was going on, and in his anxiety-fritzed processor that equated to getting into these closed offices. He pounded again on Jazz's stubborn door, leaving shallow dents in its thick metal plate and not noticing the far-worse damage he was doing to the delicate servos in his hands.

"Bluestreak?" Much larger servos caught his, Optimus Prime's voice thick with weariness, but coloured with concern. "Bluestreak, what's wrong?"

The question, asked in Prime's rich and ever-calm tones, pushed Bluestreak past his limit. He laughed, more than a touch of hysteria in his voice, and when he'd started, he found he couldn't stop – at least not without help. Prime took his shoulders, giving them a hard shake, and it was as if a switch had been thrown. Bluestreak's helpless giggles cut off. He didn't fall silent though.

Bluestreak's systems were running far too hot, stress heating his circuits beyond their virus-impaired capacity to regulate. His vocalisor flooded with static but words streamed from it nonetheless.

"Where are they? Where are they, Prime? What happened to them? And why is no one even talking about them? It just doesn't make sense, Prime, and they're gone and no one seems to care and, I mean, yes, I knew they were going away and it was meant to be fun even if Prowl is kind of scared of human kids going squish when he's not looking, but they should have been back days ago and they would have told me if they were going to be late, or told Red to tell me, or got word to me somehow even if they're meant to be undercover, because they know how I worry and no one's acting like they're undercover, but just as if they're gone, and that can't be true, it just can't, and I won't believe it, but I can't remember why I couldn't remember them and it was as if someone just took a brick wall and built it across my processor, and now it's gone, but nothing makes sense and I just wanted to find them, 'cause I've got to know, and you'd tell me, wouldn't you, Prime, if something happened to them, and you wouldn't leave me wondering like this, 'cause I just need to find them, and I thought if I could get into their offices, maybe I'd find they were sick or something and collapsed in there, or left me a hint or something, because they would you know, and you've just got to let me get in…"

Prime gave him another shake, harder, and this time Bluestreak did fall silent. His vents hitched and stuttered, heat coming off him in waves. Prime's grip on his shoulders became a little softer, squeezing gently to draw Bluestreak's wandering attention and far-too-bright optics back to him.

"Bluestreak, focus. Just tell me what's wrong."

Bluestreak cycled his optics, looking up at his Prime like a bewildered child. "Where are they, Prime? Where are Jazz and Prowl?"

This time Optimus was the one to cycle his optics, drawing in a deep vent before speaking.

"Who?"


	2. Optimus: Gaps

_A/N: Many thanks to everyone who's already reviewed or put this story on alert. I hope the story to come doesn't disappoint!_

* * *

><p><strong>Optimus – Gaps<strong>

Optimus Prime set aside another in the endless stream of datapads and vented a frustrated sigh. Logically, he must have had handled this data flow before the virus broke his routine. He just didn't seem to remember how, or have any clear idea where he'd found time to do the paperwork for the entire ship. He gazed unenthusiastically at the still-vertiginous piles of schedules, inventories and reports, and reminded himself that it was his responsibility to read them – his duty to serve the crew who served him.

Even so, he found himself clinging to the forlorn hope that this information overload was just the backlog arising from their weeks of downtime. The more logical side of his processor, analysing the drifts of office work as if this were a battle, insisted that couldn't be the case. There was easily work enough here for two or three mechs, if not more.

Shaking his head, Prime picked up the one report that did interest him – Red Alert's analysis of the Decepticon incident they'd been forced to overlook. The humans nearby at the time had sounded rather panicked over the radio, convinced that a conflict between mechs implied Autobots in need of assistance. Given that not a single mech was off the Ark at the time, let alone as far away as southern Utah, Red Alert had been quick to conclude that the humans were witnessing yet another of the Decepticons' endless internecine squabbles.

Reasonable, except… except Bluestreak insisted that Red's initial assumption was fundamentally flawed. His assertion that there were indeed mechs missing – vital mechs unaccounted for – struck a worrying chord. The names that Bluestreak had called, cried out for over and again until Ratchet arrived to sedate him, were utterly unfamiliar. Optimus found himself repeating them quietly nonetheless.

Jazz. Prowl.

There was nothing tangible to accompany the names: no images, no memories, nothing to suggest that they had any meaning beyond creations of Bluestreak's fever-wracked processor. Nonetheless, something deep inside Optimus Prime, perhaps as deep as his spark and the Matrix that pulsed in tune with it, insisted that there was something there – if not a memory, then perhaps the memory of a memory. A belief that some important recollection hovered just out of his reach.

Shaking his head, frustrated as even that hint slipped between his mental servos, Optimus glanced down at the 'pad he still held. He'd not absorbed a single word of its contents in the breems he'd been staring at it. He dropped it back to the table with a mild oath, stopping to rub his tired optics in a pointless gesture he'd picked up from Spike.

"_Prime to Ratchet."_

"_Ratchet."_ The medic's acknowledgement crackled through Prime's com without a moment's delay. Ratchet was already in his office, just like his Prime, despite their late night. He didn't bother to wait for the inevitable question_. "His fever's dropped. His systems actually stabilised pretty quickly once I got him down here, but I'm keeping him in stasis lock as a precaution."_

"_He was… in considerable distress."_

"_Going out of his processor more like,"_ Ratchet's gruff voice stated flatly. _"And I thought young Blue had gotten off light. Of all the mechs to take this 'flu' to a second phase, it had to be him! The last thing that mech needs is another trauma messing with his processor."_

"_You're sure it's the virus?"_ Optimus heard doubt in his own voice. Ratchet had none.

"_I told you when we first caught the infection that it looked like there were memory algorithms there. No one showed any sign of a memory problem I could see or test for, so I assumed they were dormant. Looks like I was wrong." _Ratchet vented, the noise coming over the com as a briefly staticky pause. _"Optimus, this is worrying. As it is, I'm starting to wonder if I'll have to wake Smokescreen from stasis to figure out what's going on in Bluestreak's processor, and won't that be an interesting first conversation: 'Hello. Yes, we know we were meant to wake you after a few orns, but it's been a wee bit longer than that. Cybertron's an empty husk. We're sort of stuck here. Oh, and I know you and Bluestreak are the last two Praxians we know about, and you're kind of fond of the kid, but he's got more than a few cogs loose in that processor of his – mind taking a look?'"_

Optimus winced. Ratchet's sarcasm was born of weariness and frustration but it was no less cutting for that.

"_But, Prime, the youngling isn't the only one who might be affected by this. If we all start forgetting things or developing warped memories, this situation could get nasty. What if I forget how to treat damaged mechs? Or, I don't know, Red Alert finally lets his paranoia overwhelm his senses and starts reacting to an infiltration that never happened?" _

Neither was a welcome prospect. The tactical implications… well, they went beyond Prime's ability to compute.

"_The Decepticons have been quiet this last few weeks,"_ he noted hopefully, before hesitating as a new thought hit him. _"You don't think they've got a dose of this too?"_

"_Doubt it. I'm pretty sure the Seekers would be mostly immune anyway. Primus forbid anyone ever mention this to Bluestreak, or Smokey for that matter, but from a purely medical standpoint, the Praxian frame has more in common with Vosian Seekers than most ground mechs. I'm pretty sure that's why he's reacting so oddly." _This time Ratchet's pause was longer. _"Prime, the Seeker immunity might be more than freak chance. The more I see of this virus, the more I'm wondering if it might actually have been engineered. Primus knows we've been pretty low over this last orn, but what if the Decepticons are waiting for this second phase – for us to get even worse?"_

Optimus felt his brow-plates fold into a frown. He couldn't dismiss his medic's speculation out of hand, nor could he entirely agree with it.

"_It's not like Megatron to wait orns for a tactic to play out." _

"_Unless it's already played out and we've just not spotted it yet."_ Ratchet's suggestion was more than a little unwelcome.

Shaking his head, Prime opened a fresh com-link about to ask for another opinion, only to realise he had no idea who to contact. Red Alert would no doubt seize upon Ratchet's suggestion without question, and Trailbreaker – although a decent strategist when it came to operational logistics and predicting the next energon raid – lacked the experience and emotional detachment needed to get inside Megatron's corrupt processor.

A frown creasing his brow, he dismissed the thought and let the extra link drop, answering Ratchet's comment with the com-link equivalent of a shrug.

"_How're the rest of the crew, Ratchet?" _

Optimus listened to the medic's cautiously optimistic report and signed off with a vented sigh. Bluestreak's physical improvement was doubtless a relief, but Optimus remained deeply worried, both for his crew's most psychologically fragile member, and for the rest of them if Ratchet's dire predictions came to pass.

* * *

><p>His nagging anxiety refused to fade.<p>

Prime was on his feet, pacing his office with another of the interminable datapads in hand, when Ironhide poked his head through the door mid-morning. The older mech took one look at his Prime and vented hard, stomping inside and letting the door slide shut behind him.

"Ratch told me 'bout young Blue. Might've known I'd find y'here beating on yourself. Optimus, y' can't take it to spark ev'ry time a mech goes through a tough patch. He'll be alright, anyway. Ratch has him in hand, and Bluestreak's bounced back from worse than a few hallucinations, y'know."

Optimus paused in his pacing, pinning Ironhide in place with an intent look.

"We took Bluestreak in as a youngling, correct, Ironhide?"

Ironhide's exasperated expression faded into a sombre frown. He folded red-clad arms across his chest. "'Twas us or nothin'." His usual relaxed drawl held an unhappy edge now. No one liked the idea of bringing up younglings as warriors. They hadn't had a choice. "Y'know that, Prime. Just like with Bumblebee."

"And Bumblebee does your guardianship and guidance great credit." Prime smiled behind his mask and then paused, the humour draining from his expressive optics. "So who took responsibility for Bluestreak?"

Ironhide opened his mouth to answer and then let it fall closed, one hand rising to rub his helm-crest.

"I carried Bluestreak to Medbay last night, Ironhide, and I activated my com to call… someone. Someone who'd want to know sooner rather than later. And there was nobody. No one I could name who I would wake from recharge to sit by Bluestreak's side." He clenched his fists. "There should have been."

Ironhide shrugged, a hint of guilt in his expression.

"We always did our best by the kid, Prime."

Optimus Prime waved off the defensive assertion.

"Ratchet mentioned Smokescreen this morning, and I've been wondering if perhaps he was Bluestreak's guardian, but Praxian or not, that doesn't feel right. Smokescreen wasn't even assigned to the unit full time until he volunteered for the auxiliary crew. But if it wasn't him, then who raised the youngling? Did we really just let him bounce from mech to mech like some unwanted chore? And why can't I remember one way or the other?"

He shook his head, sounding out the names again. "Prowl. Jazz."

"Prime…" Ironhide started uneasily.

"No. Bluestreak was suffering from more than mere hallucinations. He was convinced these missing mechs exist. He didn't just have designations for them – he knew their personalities, their likes and dislikes, even their supposed itineraries."

"The mech's got a good imagination."

"True…" Prime's voice faded to silence. He stood still for a few klicks, aware of Ironhide's worried optics on him, before striding past his armoury officer, and out into the corridor. He stopped abruptly, turning to stare at the two doors that bracketed his.

"Why are there two empty offices on this corridor?"

"Well, I don't rightly know there, Prime. Guess if we didn't need them…"

"Ironhide, your office is a converted closet; Red Alert's isn't much better. The Special Ops team doesn't even have one, as I recall. How does that make sense, with two rooms sitting here unclaimed?"

The glare Ironhide fixed on the door nearest him should have melted it there and then.

"Guess they might've been damaged in the crash?" he offered, clearly bothered by his inability to give a more definite answer. "Your room's not quite all-square, Prime. Maybe the one next door…?"

"Let's see."

Prime tapped the room's access panel without high expectations. Technically an unused room shouldn't be sealed but Red Alert had taken to locking down more and more of the Ark's empty spaces, both as a security precaution and as a deterrent to the crew's significant prankster contingent. This particular door still carried the dents from Bluestreak's attempts to gain entry, and Prime was reasonably sure that his gunner had the sense to try a button before a full on assault.

Venting behind his faceplate when his tap was met with a flat beep, Prime opened a com.

"Red Alert, could you please release the locks on the two offices alongside mine?"

There was an uncharacteristic pause before the Security Director's response. When it came, it was frustrated, confused and more than a little concerned.

"Those aren't my codes, Prime. Whoever locked those doors, I don't have the authority to override them. I can only apologise."

"Is that right?" Ironhide frowned, folding his arms across his chest.

Prime couldn't find it in himself to be surprised. "Very well, Red Alert. Thank you for your time."

"For what it was worth." Red probably didn't intend that comment to be overheard. Optimus exchanged looks with Ironhide, both mechs wincing a little at Red Alert's discouraged tone. Few things bothered their insecure Security Director more than the thought that something was going on he didn't have an explanation and security procedure in place for. It came as little surprise when the corridor's security camera swivelled quietly on its mount to watch as Prime entered the longer, more complex override sequence that he alone was privy to.

Red's startled gasp was clearly audible over the still-open channel, and even Prime's optics flared, startled, when the door failed to spring open at his command. Instead, Prime's override – the highest authority in the whole of the Autobot forces, was met by a single, strangely impertinent question.

"What is Elita One's third favourite colour?" Ironhide read aloud. "What the Pit? How's anyone meant to know that?"

"_Anyone_ isn't," Prime noted. "The question appeared in response to codes unique to me. It's seeking to confirm my identity." Brow furrowed, he stared at the words. "And it was set by someone who knows me – or both Elita and I – very well indeed."

He leaned forward, shielding the data pad slightly with his body while trying to keep the gesture subtle. Red Alert's ego could be fragile, especially if he felt his discretion or trustworthiness was under question. This answer though was personal rather than professional.

"_Pink?"_ The confused query from Ironhide came through on a private com. _"But I thought that was…?"_

Hesitating only for a moment, Prime flashed his old friend an image file. Ironhide's optics flickered as he took in the vision of Elita One clad in the same deep blue and red as her mate.

"_She'd have liked to keep it,"_ Prime whispered over the com, revelling in the stored memory file. _"But first she thought it would scare me off, and then I was Prime and advertising our bond would paint too large a target on her back-plates. She indulges only when we are alone."_

Ironhide's lip-plates twisted in the barest hint of an embarrassed smile. Prime chuckled at his occasionally prudish mentor.

"_Pink suffices. And you can be assured that if Elita One's preferences have never come up in conversation between you and I, there are precious few others I would willingly share them with."_

Ironhide nodded, intrigued by the mystery now although still looking more than a little sceptical. The door slid open, finally satisfied, and the two mechs stepped forward, looking around them with interest.

At first glance, it seemed Ironhide's scepticism was justified. The room showed unmistakeable crash damage, its portside bulkhead crumpled and a jagged rent in the roof marking the origin of the distortion ripples visible in Optimus's own office. There was a spill of datapads, a dozen or so of them, scattered across the desk and the floor beside it, and a couple of empty energon cubes – one resting on the skewed shelves behind the desk, and the second on the floor by its base. On the shelves and scattered between the datapads were a double handful of storage crystals. Picking one up and scanning it, Optimus was pleasantly surprised to discover a short music file from before the war. Scanning the datapad beside it, Prime's brow ridges shot up to find it protected by security protocols he had neither the time nor inclination to work through right now.

He set it down, turning instead to inspect the locked equipment cabinet standing against the room's straightest wall. The impressive array of Special Ops equipment – ranging from vision-enhancing visors through to electronic disruptors and simple explosives – at least explained why the room had been well secured, if not when or by whom. Given the layers of security Prime had seen so far, he wouldn't be surprised to find this neglected room hid further secrets, less apparent to a casual visitor.

Running his fingers over the transparent metal door of the equipment cabinet, Prime gave a frustrated vent.

"Why would we leave all this unused? But there's no sign anyone's been in here since we crashed."

"Ah, Prime?"

Optimus turned, surprised by the strained tone in his friend's voice. Ironhide tossed him another of the data crystals and Prime scanned it. This data file was longer, containing not just one musical piece but two: One Cybertronian and one of human origin. Accompanying them, a third document laid out a joint analysis of the two, and Prime read it with fascination, intrigued by the similarities and differences, both technical and idiomatic, that the unsigned author highlighted.

Reaching the end of the analysis, Prime looked up at the red mech beside him, both of them recognising that the data crystal, and possibly others here, firmly placed the last use of this room in the Earth era.

"Who on th'crew would write that, even if they could?" Ironhide demanded gruffly, leaning back against the desk.

Prime looked around the room. "It would suit the quick mind of a Special Ops mech." He raised a brow ridge. "One designated 'Jazz' perhaps?"

For a moment or two, Ironhide seemed to be wavering, then he cycled his optics and huffed the air out of his vents, shaking his head.

"It'll take more than that to talk me into Bluestreak's fantasy, Prime." He glanced over the equipment. "Ops, yeah, but don't y' go tellin' me Mirage couldn't ha' done this. Those Tower mechs all got musical training, right? And y' said y'self Ops should have an office. Bee and Mirage have got nerve enough t'just take an empty one." He snorted. "Probably got a thrill out'a sneaking in under our noses."

It was logical. Far more logical, in fact, than the alternative – that they'd entirely forgotten a friend and fellow officer. Prime's insistent spark though…

"Come with me." He strode from the first room, past his own, and to the second, pausing only to repeat his override on the door.

"No quiz this time?" Ironhide queried.

"No explosives," Prime noted, stepping in.

Where the first office had been rather chaotic, this one was perfectly, even obsessively, neat. Again, Prime's thought at first glance was that this office must be disused. The shelves of datapads, each precisely aligned, stored in order and presumably carrying a back up of Teletraan One's data, dominated the room and suggested it was some mysteriously forgotten library. The desk was empty, its chair – a low-backed seat of the sort preferred by mechs with back appendages of one kind or another – tucked neatly behind it. A second chair sat in front of the desk, while a third – set a little lower and with an independently tilting back – was off to one side. There was no hint of a personality in the room, but just as Prime had first assumed the disorder in the other office to result from the crash, now he wondered who had straightened this one out after their arrival, and kept it just so through the occasional tremor that ran through their volcanic home. He stepped further inside, allowing Ironhide to enter, and turned to speak to him, only to stop and stare in surprise.

There on the wall by the door, where it would be in direct line of sight for anyone seated at the desk, was an exquisite painting of long-destroyed Praxus, its crystal gardens glimmering and its towers aglow with internal light. In the sky above were the almost-forgotten ancient constellations of their home, from before the first wars that wrenched the planet out of her orbit. Twin moons shone in the darkness, reflecting light down to capture the beauty of a city that was now entirely lost. It would be a breathtaking sight anywhere on the Ark. Here, in a room so utterly devoid of any other hint of personality, it was thoroughly bewildering.

Ironhide broke away from their silent study of the painting first, shaking his head with a grunt and crossing the room to study the wall of datapads instead. Picking one at random, he scowled.

"Reports. Mostly tactical and Ops. Pre-Earth." He replaced the file in its gap and moved along the shelves, squatting with a groan of protesting hip-servos, and plucked out another. "This is from last year. Remember the first time the Twins tried out their jet-judo?"

"Ratchet wasn't impressed," Optimus deadpanned, dragging his eyes away from the painting.

Ironhide's expression darkened. "'Cording to this report, neither was someone else."

Optimus's optics brightened in surprise, but a new sound silenced him before he could ask his old friend to explain.

"That's the external com." Ironhide frowned, glancing at the desk and the now-brightened monitor that sat atop it.

"That's the _interstellar_ com," Prime corrected, more confused still by the presence of a signal that, so far as he knew, was only accessible from his own office and from Teletraan One's main interface on the command deck.

He slid behind the desk, touching the blank screen and feeling the slight tingle that meant it was scanning his servo-tips and reading the unique network of electrical currents flowing there. After a moment to confirm his identity and access rights, the screen lit up with a sight that lifted his spark even as it thoroughly perplexed him.

"Elita!"

"Optimus!" The pale pink femme seemed equally startled at the sight of his masked face, but recovered more quickly, her faceplates reshaping themselves into a warm smile. "How lovely to see you. I was going to call you after getting this out of the way." She gave a bright, rueful laugh. "But business before pleasure, as always with us. I don't have long before Shockwave tracks my location. Can you put Prowl on? I've got the energon-usage projections he's been asking for."

Optimus had to reboot his vocalisor before he could speak, his optics bright with confusion. "Prowl… is not here right now."

"Not there…?" Elita One's pretty face creased with a confusion that mirrored his. "But I thought he was due back from that school tour half an orn ago." She paused, and then brightened, the humour returning. "Don't tell me Jazz finally talked him into taking some of that downtime he's been storing up. I'm sorry I wasn't there to see those pretty door-wings twitch their way through that argument."

Her voice slowed down as she spoke. Her optics scanned Optimus's carefully blank face, her smile fading.

"Optimus, what are you doing in Prowl's office anyway?" She drew in a sharp vent. "He's not hurt is he?" Again, she scanned the facemask, trying to read optics that couldn't hide Optimus's strong emotion, even if they did obscure its meaning. He honestly had no idea what to tell her. "How bad? How is Jazz taking it?"

Optimus blinked at that, his optics flickering, and Elita seemed to read the worst in his reaction and stiff posture. "Jazz too? Oh Primus, they're not…? Please, tell me they're not…." Her voice trailed off. "Oh, Optimus! I'm so, so sorry…."

Her vents stuttered and lubricant pooled in her optics, finally breaking through Optimus's fascinated daze. This was getting out of hand.

"Elita…" he started, not quite knowing what to say, only to repeat the word more anxiously when his mate jumped and glanced behind her. "Elita!"

"I've got to go!" she snapped, her vents still unsteady, but her expression closing down into the professional mask he knew so well. "Shockwave tracked me quicker than I expected this time." She hesitated, looking hard into the screen, optics dimmed with concern. "I'll call back later. We'll talk. Optimus… you'll get through this. Everything's going to be okay."

The com line snapped closed. Her face faded from the viewscreen, and Optimus gazed at the darkened surface in silence, stunned by the image of his bond-mate – fighting on hostile Cybertron and running for her life from Shockwave's forces – attempting to offer him such fierce and heartfelt comfort.

Beside him, Ironhide was venting hard, still staring at the screen, and shaking his head as if trying to force the unthinkable to settle in his processor. He didn't need instruction this time when Prime climbed to his feet, but rather fell silently into step behind him.

* * *

><p>Ratchet glanced up as the two big mechs walked into his Medbay, their expressions unreadable. Prime strode past the recharging twins and crossed the room to Bluestreak's berth, taking one grey hand carefully in his large servos and glancing up at the medic.<p>

"Bring him out of stasis."

"But we've not worked out…" Ratchet's protest died away in the face of a glare from Ironhide. He muttered an oath, moving to his patient's side and activating a sequence in the berth's controls. "I hope you know what you're doing, Prime. He's going to be pretty disoriented still, and we don't know yet just what's causing his delusion."

Prime waved his friend into silence, tightening his grip on Bluestreak's servos as the young mech's frame began to vibrate a little harder, motors revving.

"Bluestreak," he called gently when he saw the first glimmer of light in the blue optics.

"Bluestreak," he repeated in a level voice, as those optics flared and Bluestreak jerked into panicked life. "I want you to tell me everything you can about Jazz and Prowl."


	3. Prowl: No One Cares

**Prowl – No One Cares**

The Ark would be tense by now, their capture having effects both obvious and subtle on their fellow Autobots.

Nearly a month after he left the Ark, the schedules Prowl prepared must be running down. The crew would be losing the stable routines that kept them grounded, and try as he might Optimus had never mastered the fine art of putting every mech where he could best serve, outside of the heat of battle. The whole Ark would be too quiet, but it would be more obvious in some places than others. The Rec Room would be getting jumpy, minor irritations between mechs growing into full-blown arguments without Jazz there to smooth them over, and to let the officer corps know what needed dealing with and what to leave well alone.

Assuming the officers were doing any better. Ironhide would be decimating the target range, or working his squads from waking to recharge, telling himself he needed to be ready, but in truth merely trying to distract himself from why. Red Alert was no doubt close to fritzing, working on a rescue plan even as he feverishly reprogrammed the Ark's defences, unless Ratchet had already stepped in to spare himself a future processor ache. The medic would have enough on his hands dealing with a worried Bluestreak and trying to keep Optimus on an even keel. Optimus… Optimus would be worried too, deeply so, and not even the wisdom in his ancient optics could hide that from those who knew him well.

And few people knew him better than Prowl.

The tactician tensed, feeling something… something like the distant echo of a question, pressing him to follow that thought. He resisted, fighting as he'd been fighting for so long now, the days fading into one another. He forced his mental wanderings to leave the Ark, his door-wings twitching in frustration when the image of it, embedded in the side of Mount Hillary, kept drifting back into the centre of his thoughts like a daydream from which there was no awakening.

Taking a deep vent, he nodded, accepting the image. Instead of trying to banish it, he pictured himself bending down, collecting a boulder from the dusty ground by his feet, and hauling it up to rest against his chest. With all the intense concentration his years of tactical training offered, he focused on the sensation of it in his hands, the weight of it and the streaks of yellow dirt it left across his chest-plates. Taking control of the daydream, Prowl carried the boulder a few steps, dropping it dead centre in the entrance to the Ark before turning back for another.

Slowly, laboriously, ignoring the surges of an anger that wasn't his own, he literally built a wall in his thoughts. It took an effort that strained his systems, leaving him panting through his vents. He could feel the pressure growing. Each rock seemed heavier than the last, and he had to will each one into existence, layering his firm grasp of the boulder-strewn reality surrounding his home over the oddly barren desert that replaced it every time he relaxed. He wouldn't surrender. Arm cables straining, he visualised himself pushing the final stone into place and leaned against it, the Ark and everything inside her blocked off, both from himself and from anyone looking over his shoulder.

He rebooted his optics with an effort, a little surprised to realise they'd been offline. A dark red visor met his gaze with a look of well-controlled fury before turning away.

Another few days, Prowl knew, and he'd break that control. The dark blue mech in front of him had already made it clear that his patience was thinning, the physical punishments for Prowl's resistance growing more emphatic with each session. Just another few days… but it had already been too long.

After nearly two weeks, both Prowl and Jazz were physical wrecks, steadily accumulating damage, and though they tried to hide it from one another, increasingly demoralised. Prowl was far from sure either of them would survive Soundwave's fury when the mech finally realised he was beaten, or whether it would be the inevitable sessions with Starscream and then Megatron that would finally end them. He'd spit in the faces of both Decepticon commanders, but it would be too much to hope that would end the interrogation and taunts from either one. Megatron was a brutal dictator, demanding submission with violence where the force of his personality failed. Starscream… Starscream was almost as skilled at twisting a mech's thoughts as Soundwave, and he knew exactly how to hurt Prowl as no one else could. Quite honestly, Prowl admitted in the most secret and firewalled depths of his processor, he wasn't sure which encounter he most feared.

He pushed the thought away, wanting to blame it on Soundwave's interference, but knowing that this one had come from within and not from his tormentor. Soundwave had already turned to prepare his equipment for the next phase of their session. His visor was dim, less so than Prowl's blue optics, but still telling of the energy the Decepticon had wasted on him. Soundwave's unusual gift was weaker when he was tired, Prowl knew. From now until he was dragged back to the cell-block, he just had to concentrate on resisting physical pain, rather than the more insidious mental intrusion, and even with his strength waning day by day he was getting good at that.

Experience was a fine teacher.

Prowl cycled his vents and then his optics, bracing himself. Only when he refocused his optics did he realise that the nature of the game had changed. Soundwave sipped an energon cube, his visor glowing brighter as each mouthful reenergised him. Prowl's fuel tank cramped, his depleted systems stuttering with need. He felt his vents increase in frequency, becoming ragged pants. His door-wings perked and then they cramped too, sending a shaft of agony through his back as they fought the restraints that limited their motion.

Instructing his optics to cycle down, he forced his battle computer to boot, using its cold reason to suppress his body's need. The Decepticons were feeding him and Jazz enough to keep them alive, not prepared to let high-ranking prisoners die before giving up their secrets. Craving more energon had a certain logic, since many of his systems – not least of them his battle computer – were under constant strain or shutting down entirely. On the other hand, letting physical cravings weaken his resistance would invalidate his efforts to date, and leave him at a significant tactical disadvantage. It wasn't to be tolerated.

His battle computer stuttered its way offline but its conclusions lingered. He held onto them, using them to calm himself as Soundwave turned back to him, optics bright and energy renewed. As Jazz would say, it was time for round two.

He vented hard, optics on the tools in Soundwave's hands. Bracing himself both physically and mentally, Prowl nodded an acknowledgement and silently dared the telepath to do his worse.

* * *

><p>Prowl's door-wings were ablaze with agony. He screamed, not even trying to resist the shriek as Soundwave allowed another drop of acid to join the thin streams working their way down Prowl's left sensory panel.<p>

Somewhere above him, the tall, dark blue mech grunted with satisfaction. Prowl didn't let it trouble him. Letting himself cry out gave Soundwave no power over him; it was merely a physical response. It would be illogical to suppress the outburst, the effort adding to the strain on his systems. Screaming for the Decepticons might satisfy their baser instincts, but brought them no closer to breaking him. Not while he resisted in all the ways that mattered.

"Resistance: illogical." Soundwave's droning voice held a note of irritation, and Prowl knew his surface thoughts had been read.

Again, that didn't matter. As long as Prowl's mental walls held firm, and his tactical and deeply personal data files remained private beyond them, the telepath could gain small advantage in hearing the ramblings of a pain-flooded processor. In fact, Prowl concentrated on rolling that pain to the front of his mind, bundled in a tight package, before pushing it outwards. He screamed again at the effort, but was rewarded when his hyper-sensitised door-wings reported a faltering in Soundwave's vent cycle and a strangled grunt from the telepath.

"Resistance: illogical," Soundwave repeated, and this time the anger was less well hidden, despite the monotone. "Projections report 100% probability of failure. Eventual capitulation: inevitable."

This time, Prowl made an effort to keep his reactions private. He pushed the unwelcome flicker of uncertainty down behind his own anger, flicking his door-wings with an instinctive reaction and then forced to wait for the processor-fritzing pain to subside.

"Nothing you can say will break me," he grated out, vocalisor harsh with static and optics bright. Putting voice to the assertion was a mistake. His battle computer, intermittent in function now that his energon levels had dropped so low, burst into life and helpfully provided him with a dozen scenarios in which he would indeed falter, regardless of his best efforts.

Above the frantic rattle of his overstressed systems he heard Soundwave hum thoughtfully. The Decepticon telepath would not have seen the projections, hidden as they were behind Prowl's battle-ready firewalls, but he couldn't have missed the way Prowl's spark fell as he read them.

"Autobot Prowl will yield." The way Soundwave said the words made them a certainty, Primus-ordained writ. Another flare of acid on Prowl's door-wings was accompanied by an electric charge that passed from his wrists to his ankles, making his engine stutter and his spark-chamber pulse with agony. "Autobot Jazz will also be broken. Security information and tactical projections will be surrendered before deactivation."

"It'll take you a lot more than an orn to break me." Prowl grated between clenched denta, when his harsh vents had subsided and his vocalisor cleared of static. "Or Jazz."

Soundwave gave a non-committal hum, not needing to comment when Prowl's processor was already working to undermine his words. True, he was working on breaking the telepath himself, and getting closer by the session, but a quiet internal voice – one impossible to ignore at the height of these sessions, when pain wracked every inch of him – knew the reverse was also true.

Twelve days, very nearly a full orn in Decepticon hands, and Prowl was finding it harder and harder to resist the pain, or to hide his reaction when Jazz was tossed – damaged and drained – back into the cell-block after his own sessions. He was starting to hate the sight of purple walls, and, truthfully, he was starting to hate himself every time he woke up to see them. He wanted to have the courage to end this rather than stretch it out, adding to the risk for all his friends and increasing the probability of both Soundwave's projections and his own coming true.

Only two things stopped him: Jazz, always first and foremost, and the expectation that, sooner or later, they would both be rescued.

"Rescue: unlikely." This time Soundwave picked up on Prowl's faltering flare of hope, guessing its origin, and was merciless in quashing it. The Decepticon paused, an unusual gravity and grim satisfaction in his monotonous voice as he echoed his words with a mental projection, making them impossible for his captive to ignore. "Autobots: unaware of your capture. Unaware of your existence. Autobots subject to virus: all memories and records of Prowl and Jazz deleted. Time remaining for interrogation: indefinite."

Prowl forced his optics to cycle, only now realising they'd dimmed. His processor shrieked a protest, fighting a sensory overload as images of the too-bright room competed against the stream of agonised data from his door-wings. Even so, Prowl stared at Soundwave, shocked beyond his ability to mask the emotion.

His fellow Autobots – his _friends_ – weren't coming? Worse, they didn't even know there was anyone to come for? Prowl's vents stuttered badly, his optics flickering.

"Conclusion: no one cares about the fate of Jazz and Prowl."

He wanted to laugh in Soundwave's face, but his battle processor was relentless, assigning the scenario a high probability despite his wishes. Starscream and Hook were both more than competent scientists, easily capable of designing a virus to their specifications. Soundwave was an expert in analysing a mech's processors, knowing precisely where to strike – both physically and emotionally – for maximum effectiveness. And there'd been that last report from the Ark…

Prowl felt his emotions tumbling through his firewalls, his processor jumping from public thoughts to shielded ones rapidly enough to provide Soundwave with a conduit to follow. He was losing control. He could feel Soundwave probing the weakened walls, could dimly see the bright glow of a red visor above him.

Ruthlessly, he overrode his operating protocols, triggering his own medical stasis and leaving Soundwave staring in frustration at his inert, utterly locked down processor.

* * *

><p>"Prowl? Prowl!"<p>

Jazz's voice held more than a little worry. Rebooting his optics, Prowl stared blindly at the ceiling of the cell-block. His body still vibrated from the combination of magnetic pulses and sonics his companion had used to break his stasis lock. His processor still rang with Soundwave's cruel words. His optics flared, lighting the darkened cells for a few moments before they faded.

"C'mon, Prowler. Work with me here! Ya alright?"

Jazz's appeal roused him as little else would. He cycled his optics again, and pushed himself up, unable to suppress a moan as his door-wings made their presence – and their agony – known.

For a few seconds, he could do nothing but sort through the rush of sensory data, doing what he could to suppress the nerve impulses from his damaged wings. He came back to himself venting hard, to find Jazz had shuffled to the bars between their cells, and was pressed up against them, hand stretched out helplessly in an attempt to reach his mate.

The Nemesis had been designed as a transport. Its brig was an afterthought, nothing more than a series of cramped metal cages welded to the floor of a large storeroom. There was a six-foot gap between the bars of Jazz's cell wall and those of Prowl's, wide enough for a guard to stalk between them and to make any attempt at contact too obvious to hide. Jazz's arm fell across the gap, finger-servos extended but falling short of the contact both mechs hungered for.

Prowl keened softly, looking up at his mate with naked longing in his optics. Jazz's visor brightened with concern, his vents mirroring Prowl's. It was more emotion than either had allowed themselves to show for one another since their capture. Prowl found he couldn't fault it, craved more of it, in fact.

If they truly were alone… forgotten… Prowl needed Jazz's support and comfort more than ever. He shuffled forward a little, reaching through the bars and winding his white servos gently around Jazz's cruelly-damaged black ones. The contact gave him something solid to focus on, a physical reality other than the agony of his doorwings.

"I'm… I shall be fine," he murmured with as much conviction as he could muster. "Jazz, please calm down."

Jazz gave a shaky laugh, making no move to free his hand, but regulating his vents and letting his helm fall forward against the cold iron bars with a thud.

"Kinda scared me there, mech."

Prowl managed a slight smile. "For which I apologise. It was… necessary."

Jazz's head lifted. He fixed Prowl with a gaze that looked straight through him, either reading the turmoil in his posture or merely sensing it.

"Gotta keep our spirits up. The others will be here soon, 'ssuming we don't find a way outta here ourselves first."

Jazz's confident assurance fell flat in the mire of Prowl's doubts. His mate hesitated, looking up at him earnestly and striving to make his tone encouraging. The servos entwined with Prowl's gave a gentle squeeze, despite the pain that must cause.

"And soon as Prime comes crashin' through that door, we'll get Ratch t' take a look at those poor door-wings of yours, right, Prowler?" A little uncertainty was creeping into the other mech's tone now. "Man, I don't know what that slagger Soundwave said t' ya, Prowl, but everything's goin' to be okay. You've gotta keep believin' that."

"Jazz…" Prowl's voice trailed off. He glanced out into the dark shadows beyond their cages and then met Jazz's visored optics, needing to talk this out. "What did Ratchet tell us on our last check in?"

Jazz hesitated. He glanced up through the top of his cage, toward the ceiling far above and the cameras mounted all around. The Decepticons might not be able to afford the power for energon bars on their cells, making do with mere metal alloy, but they didn't lack for manpower. Neither Jazz nor Prowl had any doubt that they were being monitored twenty-four hours a day, their words and actions recorded. Already they'd gone further towards revealing their true closeness in the last ten minutes than they had in the last orn. Now Prowl was touching on something potentially more dangerous still: the operational status of the Ark itself.

Jazz studied his mate for a long moment, seeing the need in his gaze, before making a decision and nodding abruptly.

"Ratch said Blue and a few of th' others were down wi' some sorta mech-flu, but we shouldn't worry and shouldn't hurry home."

Jazz had worried nonetheless, and Prowl had felt like a traitor to himself insisting they wait the full forty-eight hours before their next scheduled check-in. It wouldn't do to let the Ark crew know that their officers were concerned, and it was illogical to trouble Ratchet when he was no doubt busy.

The Decepticon attack had come after forty-seven.

"Is there any way the Decepticons could have known that?"

Now Jazz shrugged, not letting go of Prowl's hand, but settling back more comfortably. Moving was difficult for the mech, his balance centres affected by the damage to his sensory horns and his legs not responding to instruction, unable to take his weight even if there was room to stand properly in the cramped cages. "Sure, if one o' the cassettes got into th' vents again, or tapp'd our coms. Why not? What'd Soundwave tell ya, Prowler? That everyone got sick while we weren't lookin'? That they were all knockin' on the gates of th' Matrix? Ratch is too good for that."

There was a slight hint of concern in Jazz's gaze despite his words, and it deepened as Prowl looked away, refusing to meet his optics. He truly didn't want to tell Jazz this, to shatter his mate's hopes of rescue, but better it come from him than from Soundwave. This was information Jazz needed to know.

"When the Decepticons attacked…" Soundwave had been there, dampening their coms, but they'd seen the humans scurrying for cover. They knew from experience that at least some of the inevitable frantic phone calls would get through, the technology too primitive for Cybertronians to effectively counter. "We held out as long as we could."

"Sure," Jazz agreed, frowning in earnest now.

Prowl dimmed his optics, summoning up the memory. They'd not expected a quick response from the Ark. There was the time required for the human calls to pass from local police to national authorities, and from there to the Ark, and then the time the Autobots needed to muster a battle squad. They'd both been ready to resist for a fair while, mentally counting down the time their friends would need. Sickness in the Ark crew might have stretched that a little, but Jazz and Prowl would have been informed of any significant impairment in Ark functions, routine check-in or not.

"I expected support to arrive several breems before our capture," Prowl noted aloud.

"Anything could've slowed them down, Prowler. Ya know that. Skyfire fritzin' a circuit, Red Alert runnin' just a few dozen more checks on th' reports before decidin' it wasn't a trap, th' Twins wrappin' half th' Ark up in one of their mega-pranks… anything."

Prowl tried to smile at the thought of a Sideswipe and Sunstreaker-inspired 'Major Incident' but couldn't. As reluctant as he was to concede defeat and amusement at the twins' occasional entertaining victories, he genuinely enjoyed the intellectual challenge of locking processors with the two masters of sneaky pranks. This time, even the possibilities for mayhem that his aching battle computer presented couldn't divert him.

"Soundwave believes that the infection in the Ark mechs affected their memory processors," Prowl said sombrely. Jazz jerked upright, his hand falling out of Prowl's as his servos slackened with shock. "Specifically, that it removed any reference to you and me, Jazz."

"That's a load of slag!" The assertion burst out of Jazz based on nothing more than pure emotion. His optics dimmed though, and Prowl could see distress following hard on the heels of the shock and anger. The best comfort any Autobot could take when facing death in this interminable war was the knowledge that his companions would hold his memory close. The strongest oath they could make to a fallen comrade was "We shall remember", keeping alive the memories in song and in stories told during the long evenings. One of the few things neither Jazz nor Prowl had doubted was that help would come for them, as soon as their shipmates could find a way, and that if, in the last extreme, it came too late, their friends would grieve them deeply and avenge their loss.

"We don't know that it's true," he comforted, as well as he could. "But, Jazz, if there's even a possibility that it is, we cannot rely on the Ark for rescue."

Jazz cycled his vents. For a few second he rested his helm back against the bars, offlining his optics and letting Prowl read his distress. Then he straightened, a new determination glowing behind his visor.

"Then we'll just hafta get ourselves outta here."

Prowl didn't trouble himself to point out that they were weak, damaged and energy-depleted. Or that any plan Jazz hadn't already been willing to attempt after an orn in captivity most likely had a probability of success too low for his battle computer to calculate.

He met his mate's visored optics through the bars and nodded, hissing in pain as his door-wings tried to rise into a more assertive position. They'd have to try to escape, or die in the attempt. At this point, there were no other options.

The door to the brig swung open with an audio-grating shriek of rusted hinges. Pulling their arms back through the bars and to their sides, both mechs turned, as best they could, fixing the dark blue Decepticon on the threshold with identical angry glares.

Soundwave had waited just long enough for Prowl to pass on the bad news, now he stepped towards Jazz's cell before moving aside. Two of the Constructicons moved past him, not sparing Prowl a glance as they opened the cage and hauled Jazz out. The saboteur kicked out with uncoordinated jerks of his legs, his fists pounding on his captors as they dragged him away, projecting a false bravado and hiding his new uncertainty from everyone but his mate.

Prowl could only call out to Soundwave, reminding him that torturing Jazz further would not aide his cause, and trying to mask the anxiety he felt deep in his spark.

The cell-block door swung closed. Silence descended. Prowl knew he should make an effort to recharge while he had the chance. Instead, he lay curled in a corner of his cold metal cage, awake and alone, and tried to convince himself he was imagining his mate's screams.


	4. Red Alert: The Big Picture

_A/N: Many thanks for the reviews (which have ranged from threats to offers of candy). I'm sorry for not answering every comment. I very much appreciate each one and I'm enjoying your speculations about what's going to happen. You'll just have to wait and see..._

* * *

><p><strong>Red Alert – The Big Picture<strong>

* * *

><p>"Slag it."<p>

Red Alert didn't often indulge in profanity. This seemed to be the time for it. He glanced up at the bank of security monitors on the wall above him as much to reassure himself with their familiarity as to check their content. Venting a sigh, he let his optics sink back down to the report on his desktop display, and the undeniable facts it contained. A frown creased his brow-ridges.

His tanks churned, but there was no avoiding this, and every klick of delay was an unacceptable risk. With an abrupt, decisive motion, he stood, reaching for a box stored on the shelf behind his desk before heading to the door.

"Enter." Optimus Prime responded at once to his office door chime. The Prime's deep voice was level, and as calm as it could be given the situation. Despite that, Red found he had to pause, cooling his systems and reaching for the professional air he strived to maintain at all times.

He knew that he couldn't honestly be blamed for the mistake. His analysis of the data their scout team brought back from the site of last orn's Decepticon skirmish had been thorough and completed to the best of his abilities, based on the information he had at the time. In retrospect though…

"I stand by 83 percent of my initial analysis," he announced without preamble.

Prime, well accustomed to his Security Director's focus, merely waved him to a chair, optics intent.

"The Utah incident?"

"Paint flakes scraped from their armour – pale purple and mid-blue respectively – confirm the presence of Skywarp and Thundercracker. The third pair of Seeker thruster-marks are almost certainly Starscream's, based both on his trine's presence and his proven skill in avoiding paint-chipping damage." Red Alert knew he was being defensive. Even so, he couldn't help laying out the correct findings in advance of the errors. He perched on the edge of Prime's guest chair, box resting on his knees as he went on. "Fusion cannon damage on some of the township's buildings strongly imply Megatron's presence, while a range of smaller footprints and associated damage trails place Soundwave, or at least several of his cassettes, on the ground."

The deep blue glow of Optimus's optics had faded through the roll call, despite the fact that he'd already seen the initial version of Red Alert's report and nothing in it had changed thus far.

"Most of the Decepticon high command, in fact."

Red Alert nodded. "It's possible others were present, but left no trace detectable by the time we surveyed the area." They hadn't looked hard. The obvious traces had been deemed sufficient. If the amount of damage, and the drying pools of corrosive energon, were anything to go by, the battle had been fierce.

"Go on," Prime said softly, sensing his officer's hesitation.

There was nothing for it. Red Alert cycled his vents, his optics sliding away from his commander's. "We also detected flakes of unfamiliar black and white paint in several locations, one piece of damaged white thigh-plating not attributable to any known mech, and indications of an acid weapon in use."

Optimus Prime greeted his words with a flat silence. Red shook his head, his optics glued to the desk as he went on.

"We initially interpreted these to indicate the arrival of a new Decepticon on Earth, perhaps one insane enough to challenge both Megatron and Starscream for the leadership. In light of new considerations…"

Even now, after several Earth hours to absorb Bluestreak's insistence that Autobots were involved and Prime's surprising support for that assertion, Red Alert still felt his processors trying to fritz over the implications.

"… I am forced to revisit that conclusion. Acid pellets have conventionally been considered an Autobot weapon. White is an unusual colour for a Decepticon, and both black and white carried a gloss finish that most Decepticons would reject as impractical and undesirable. Reanalysis of the battle damage suggests at least one, perhaps two, ground-based mechs, with some evidence for tyre tracks that may originate from their alt forms – again comparatively unusual for a 'Con." Red Alert looked up, reluctantly. "The evidence is circumstantial. But given the independent testimony of Bluestreak and Elita One, I can only conclude that there were indeed Autobots involved in the incident in question."

This time it was Optimus Prime who looked away, dimming his optics for a few seconds. This time it was his voice that trembled a little.

"There was damaged plating?"

Red Alert nodded sombrely, looking down at the box on his knees. It had been searched, scanned and examined at length for any sort of hazard, before being stored in the Security Office until Perceptor was well enough to reopen his analysis lab. Now he opened it slowly, gazing down at the specks of white and black paint and the three-foot-long strip of Cybertronian metal within. He swept it with another security scan, just in case, before reaching in. Lifting the mud-streaked white metal plate out, cautious of its jagged, energon-tinted edges, he studied it for a long moment, trying to place the mech who had worn it, or feel anything other than frustration and a mild dread at the implications of this small fragment of armour.

Venting and shaking his head, Red Alert lifted it across the desk, presenting the plating to Optimus Prime with considerably more respect than he'd have shown to some 'Con's cast off.

"It is…difficult… to accept that this belonged to a friend," Optimus noted carefully. He didn't add that it might be the last fragment of the mech they ever found. Both already knew that and a glance was all the mutual acknowledgment they needed.

"Optimus, are you sure?" The question burst from Red Alert before he could censor it. "Are you really sure that this not some elaborate Decepticon ruse to force us to accept this 'Jazz' and 'Prowl' as our own? There's one person aboard – just one – that has any real belief that the mechs even exist! Are you truly certain of they're not infiltrators, trying to steal past our security and allow the Decepticons to overwhelm us all as we recharge…?"

Prime looked up at him, more sympathy in his eyes than Red Alert had any right to expect. Red felt his plating heat, and dropped his eyes in shame as his voice trailed away. If he was honest with himself, the possibility of a Decepticon ploy – beyond that already exposed – was slim to say the least. In truth, it wasn't that Red Alert didn't believe his Prime's calm statement that two of their officers were missing… simply that he didn't want to.

Everything within Red Alert, all that he was, recoiled in horror at the mere thought that this could happen. The Decepticons had taken captive two of the Ark's own. They'd violated the integrity not only of the Ark, but every single mech aboard her. Not even the finest rose-tinted visor Inferno had to offer could disguise that as anything but the grossest of failures on Red Alert's part.

"Are you sure?" Red whispered again.

Optimus vented a deep sigh, cradling the torn plating in his huge hands.

"Can I afford not to be?"

* * *

><p>"We all got it from Teletraan One?" Ironhide summarised Red Alert's opening statement in one sentence, glancing at Ratchet for confirmation.<p>

Suppressing his sigh, Red Alert looked around the Senior Officers' meeting to check everyone else was following before he nodded. Even with Bluestreak as a nervous and fidgety interloper, there was still a vacant chair at the table. He gazed at it with mild resentment, unable to hide his displeasure. Ratchet had already been over this point, albeit in medical jargon. Red Alert had merely intended to put it in the context of his own report, not reopen it for debate.

"Every mech interfaces with Teletraan on a routine and regular basis. Infections would have been passed on rapidly. Initial infection most likely originated in either a radio transmission or a casetticon infiltration."

He couldn't help but flinch as he spoke. The persistence and creativity the Decepticon cassettes showed in infiltrating the Ark was his longest-running processor-ache, and his greatest ongoing failure.

"And Teletraan seems to be forgetting things just like the rest of us," Ratchet jumped in, taking advantage of his hesitation. The medic looked tired, massaging the base of his broad chevron with one finger, as if that would ease the processor ache behind it. Red held onto his patience with an effort, counted under his breath and jumped ahead in his prepared notes, past the point that Ratchet had just blurted out.

"Using the duplicate records in, ah, _Prowl's_ office for comparison, I've made progress on identifying several distinctive signatures that indicate an altered file." He glanced down at his notes. "I am still working on an algorithm to recover the missing material, but in the majority of cases, it looks like a simple deletion of names from mission reports and schedules, as well as personal records, room assignments and similar."

"But that wouldn't…"

Red Alert cut Ironhide's eighth interruption of the afternoon off with a glare. The red-clad mech held up a placating hand.

"Whoa, okay, Red, I'll hold my horses for a while and let you get what you've got to say off of your chest."

The older officer's human colloquialism was met with a blank stare of incomprehension from Red Alert and a chuckle from the rest of the table despite the serious atmosphere. Red vented a sigh, rubbing his sensory horns to calm himself.

"Where deletions in a file exceeded some coherency threshold, it appears the file was removed in its entirety. I've identified several Special Ops files extensively referred to in cross-references but apparently no longer extant."

"Jazz," Bluestreak murmured sadly.

"I assume so." Red paused, rubbing again at the sides of his helm. He could feel the pressure building there, the static charge mounting. "There could have been crucial strategic and security information in those files. The extent of the loss is incalculable – we could be on our back pedes against the Decepticons for vorns if the files can't be recovered! For all we know, they may even now be massing at some forward base we've forgotten we know about!"

"Red Alert," Prime's deep rumble cut through the jumble of chaotic thoughts in Red's processor. It was like soothing balm on his frayed nerves. The losing battle he'd been fighting for the last twenty-four hours – trying to both identify and curtail the access of two officers considerably more senior than himself – had left him not far from fritzing and suspicious of anything he was told. Nothing in Red Alert's programming however, or in his years of loyal service, would allow him to disbelieve his Prime. "Red, I think it's unlikely we would have dispatched two senior officers on a… school tour?" he glanced at Bluestreak for confirmation, "…if we had any intelligence of an impending attack."

"Yes." Red cycled his optics and sent a mental plea to his cooling fans to handle his overheating frame. The red mist subsided from around the edges of his mind and he vented hard. "That makes sense, yes. Thank you, Prime."

He stared blankly at his notes for a few seconds, struggling to recall what he had been saying.

"File deletions. Yes. Perhaps the most striking example – and the strongest indication that both Teletraan and individual bots are experiencing a similar phenomenon – is the fall of Praxus."

A hiss from Ratchet broke Red Alert's concentration, and he twisted slightly in his seat, only then remembering the company he was in. Young Bluestreak hadn't made a sound, but he was sitting bolt upright in his seat, his optics so bright they were almost white, the tips of his door-wings quivering and his expression curiously blank.

Red Alert was not a naturally cruel mech. He pursed his lips, head tilted to one side and vented a sigh. "Bluestreak, perhaps you'd like to wait outside for a breem or so?"

The sound of his name seemed to draw the young gunner out of his daze. He blinked at Red Alert, and then looked towards Ratchet, before shaking his head. He was still tense, painfully so, but the unnatural glow of his optics faded a little. He drew in a vent before speaking, his voice shaky.

"I want to stay. I want to help. You said… you said… Praxus?"

"There are scarcely any records of that major incident or its immediate aftermath in Teletraan 1's databanks." Red Alert went on, optics drifting between Bluestreak and Ratchet, ready to stop and return to this topic later if need be. "Having examined my own memory core and queried several other mechs, it's clear that the memories of all the command crew are similarly scarce. I know that the Autobots attended the scene. I clearly remember a certain youngling exploring every possible security hazard on base in the orns that followed." Bluestreak stared, and then managed a weak smile despite his trembling wingtips, surprised to find himself the subject of one of Red Alert's rare, self-deprecating jokes. "However my memories of the incident itself are disjointed and fragmentary at best. I believe the presence of our Praxian second in command, and possibly our third as well, was a significant factor in our thoughts and actions that day – too significant to be easily overlooked."

Optimus Prime vented hard, raising his brow ridge as he was forced to relive even fragmentary memories of that day's genocide.

"It is a potent example," he murmured. His calm, eternal gaze turned to Bluestreak, still trembling a little but less so now, with Ratchet's hand on his arm to anchor him. "And, as difficult as they may be, those memories should not be forgotten."

Red sighed, one hand coming up to touch the side of his helm before returning to the datapad. His processor ached, but he wouldn't rest until he'd put his failures right. "I believe it will be possible to recover much of Teletraan's data given time, and assuming it isn't overwritten with new input in the meantime. Unfortunately, it would appear that the process will take several orns, given the volume of data affected."

"Still a slag-load easier with Teletraan 1 than with our own memories," Ratchet muttered, rubbing the back of his helm. "I've not figured out where to start with that."

"Red's picking things out using the copies in this Prowl's files, right?" Ironhide had a frown of concentration on his face. "So what about using the Auxiliary Crew?"

Bluestreak perked up hopefully, seeing what Ironhide was getting at. Prime looked interested. Red Alert had to pause and think about what was being suggested. The Ark's auxiliary crew – mechs who'd volunteered to ride out the ship's primary mission in stasis to eke out their depleted energon supply. At first, after they woke on this strange new world, the surviving sleepers had been left alone for the same reason. Since their alliance with the humans secured the Autobots' energy needs, there'd been talk of bringing the stasis-locked crew around. The rapid pace of this world had simply left them no time to do it. In stasis, isolated from Teletraan 1, the auxiliary crew wouldn't be affected by the memory loss, but...

"Wouldn't work," Ratchet stated flatly, just as Red was reaching the same conclusion. "It's not like having an identical copy of an altered file to train a reconstruction algorithm. The mechs in stasis have memories of their own. They couldn't tell you what's missing from _yours_ any better than Blue here can."

Bluestreak's wings drooped, his expression turned thoroughly miserable at Ratchet's blunt words. Red Alert tried not to let the distraught youngling distract him. Dragging his attention back to his notes with an effort, he leaned back in his chair and fixed his optics on Prime, not allowing side issues to divert him from his key point.

"However, the fact remains that we have significant gaps in our tactical and reference, as well as our personal, databases."

He hesitated, glance darting to the still-jittery Bluestreak before returning to the datapad in his hands. "And that is before we consider the probability that after an orn in captivity, one or both of our officers may have been compromised…"

"They wouldn't tell the 'Cons anything!" Bluestreak cut in indignantly.

"All officers are trained to resist interrogation for a finite period," Red Alert agreed. "And there appears to be no doubt regarding their loyalty. However…"

"Jazz would tell them to stick it up their thrusters," Blue insisted. "And no one can keep a secret like Prowl."

Eyes resting on the stubborn youngling, Red Alert wondered how to phrase what had to be said. He shook his head, closing his mouth and turning to Ironhide with a silent appeal. The older officer leaned forward, reaching out gently to put a hand on Bluestreak's arm.

"Ah, lil' Blue, I know it's kinda hard t'take in, but Red's right. It's been an orn an' the 'Cons won't be being gentle, not with these two bein' officers."

"Prowl and Jazz would rather give up their sparks than betray us!"

The young gunner's outburst fell into a grim silence. Bluestreak stared around the table in confusion for several seconds and then gasped. His door-wings jerked up in alarm, his vents stuttered and they all heard the revving of his engine as his systems reacted to his stress.

"No!" Bluestreak shook his head vehemently. "No! They can't be gone. They just can't be. They're too good for that. They wouldn't… they'd find a way to escape. You'll see, they'll find a way. They'll get back here and walk through the door and we'll all laugh about how dumb the 'Cons were to think they could get away with this, and everything will be all right." Bluestreak looked around the table of sombre faces. His door-wings wilted, falling slowly until they lay flat against his back. "They're not dead," he insisted. "They wouldn't give up… they wouldn't leave us."

"Bluestreak, listen to me." The gentle approach had failed. Now Red Alert put a sharp note in his voice, catching the attention of the rambling youngling. It was oddly satisfying to be able to return Prime's favour and bring the other bot back down to Earth. Bluestreak's too-bright optics snapped towards him, the young warrior hanging on his words. "It's unlikely in the extreme that the Decepticons would put this much effort into their capture unless they were planning a lengthy and detailed interrogation. They would have no intention of allowing Jazz or Prowl to terminate after a mere orn – not given the amount of strategic information at stake and the unprecedented opportunity they have here. As far as they know, we remain unaware of even the potential for a security breach. They will not be unduly hasty in disposing of their new assets."

Bluestreak, calming, held Red Alert's optics for a few seconds before nodding. Red Alert vented, breaking the tension in the room. The Autobots present settled back in their chairs, shifting and glancing away to hide their discomfort.

"Nonetheless," Red went on. "Preparing for a security breach is a straightforward and obvious precaution." He glanced at Bluestreak, back down at his notes and took a guess based on what he'd learned about the missing officers. "Prowl would expect it of us," he noted, satisfied when Bluestreak gave a reluctant nod.

"And you have that in hand, I assume?"

Red Alert turned towards his Prime, nodding. "It is a work in progress," he conceded. "However, the defensive perimeters have been reprogrammed to alert me of any attempted access, whether or not it uses authorised codes, and Wheeljack has assisted me in designing several additional, ah…"

"Surprises," the engineer offered helpfully, head-fins flashing a cheerful orange.

"Indeed," he inclined his head towards his fellow officer in acknowledgement. "'Surprises' in the event that either our physical or data-security precautions are breached."

Ironhide frowned and even Optimus Prime looked a little concerned at that, but didn't ask anything further, placing his trust in his officers.

"Very well." Prime shifted in his chair, leaning forward and resting his arms on the table. There was a determined expression in his optics and a frown furrowing his brow. "Which leaves only the most important question of all. Autobots, two of our own are in the hands of Megatron and his Decepticons. How are we going to get them back?"

The silence that followed Prime's question was deep and discouraged.

Red Alert looked around the room, his optics skimming away from Bluestreak's increasingly worried ones. He'd hoped that at least one of his fellow officers would have a suggestion more workable than his own.

"Prime, I'm reluctant to suggest we send Mirage into the Nemesis to investigate." That was an understatement. There was no appeal at all to the thought of putting the noble spy in so delicate a situation, all for the sake of two mechs that Red had never heard of a day ago. Especially when – reassuring words to Bluestreak notwithstanding – there was a significant probability he'd locate nothing but a pair of greyed-out frames. "Without some way to offer him an advantage it would be a substantial risk. We still have an incomplete picture of the situation, and we have to consider the possibility that Mirage's abilities are now known to the Decepticons."

Prime sighed, lifting one hand to still Bluestreak's inevitable renewed protest. His hand shifted to his facemask, rubbing it tiredly. "I keep looking around, expecting someone to interrupt with a bold plan. Expecting there to be a voice of reason keeping us grounded, and seeing options that the rest of us have missed." He looked around the room, expression almost hopeful, only to be met with blank faces. Whatever dim echoes Prime was getting from the Matrix, the rest of them could only go by their own fractured memories.

"You were friends for a long time," Bluestreak volunteered, speaking nervously to fill the silence. "A really long time. You and Jazz and Prowl, and you, Ratchet, and all of you really. I thought maybe I remember them because I know them best, but you know, I'm not sure that's true. I mean, you were working together before I was even sparked – long before." His face crumpled in dismay. "It must be really hard for you having them not here."

Ratchet and Ironhide exchanged looks. Red Alert glanced down, scanning his datapad for the sake of something to do. Even Prime shifted in his seat, discomforted. The honest truth, the one no one wanted to share with young Blue, was that it wasn't hard at all. The violation was distressing, and the inconsistencies arising from it disconcerting, but it was hard to feel anything in particular about the absence of two mechs that they couldn't recall ever having known.

Optimus seemed at a loss of words. Red Alert did his duty, speaking up to distract attention from his Prime.

"What might give our captives a little time and, perhaps give us the element of surprise, is that the Decepticons think us oblivious. We should attempt to prolong that. I advise we keep this information at an officer-only level, and limit the chances of the Decepticons learning of our discoveries. We must allow them to believe their virus has had the planned effect."

"Planned effect…" Wheeljack mused, head-fins shading pale pink. His gaze drifted to Ratchet as he hummed thoughtfully. "And we want to give Ops an edge…"

Ratchet's optics narrowed. "Whatever you're thinking, I'm not going to like it, am I?"

"Is there anything about this situation to like?" Red Alert asked of no one in particular. No one could give him a good answer.

* * *

><p>"Red!"<p>

Red Alert hit the ground hard, rolling into the shelter of a rocky outcrop partly under his own volition, partly from the forceful shove that had sent him to the ground in the first place. Seeker-fire rained around them, and he didn't need Inferno's yell of warning to keep his head down.

Giving an inarticulate yell of frustration himself, Red tucked himself into the meagre shelter and fired off a _where-are-you?_ ping at Mirage.

This wasn't working. In this format he might be a Lamborghini, built for speed, but he was also in fire-chief colours, designed to be seen. He watched more battles from the Ark than from the ground, and even then would usually hang back with the long-range snipers and command element. He wasn't good at being inconspicuous in the thick of things. Particularly with an overprotective and even more noticeable fire truck insisting on dogging his every step.

"The Seekers will lose interest in a few moments." Red Alert predicted with more confidence than he felt, trying to get his head above the rocks for long enough to study their situation, and getting another gentle but very firm shove for his trouble.

"Keep down," Inferno urged, hunkered down beside him. "I don't get it, Red. What are we doing all the way out here?"

"I must say I was wondering the same thing." The unexpected voice had both mechs twisting around, weapons in hand, before its refined accent and air of gentle sarcasm penetrated. Mirage gave them a moment to identify him before fading into view. The blue and white Ligier crouched beside them, sharing their shelter despite the fact that neither had heard him approach.

Red Alert vented a sigh of relief.

"You were close by?" he noted unnecessarily.

It hadn't been a forgone conclusion when Red pinged him. Special Ops mechs worked outside the direct line of command in battles – even completely unexpected, skirmish-turned-minor-battles like this one – free to exercise their skills where they thought best. For all he'd known, Mirage could have been half an hour away on the other side of the unusually chaotic, impromptu battlefield. It was a relief to find him closer.

Mirage nodded, venturing a glance over their outcrop and unfolding a little. He huffed a shallow breath through his vents, inclining his head towards the hollow where Bluestreak and the other ranged fighters who'd rallied to support their ambushed scouts had set up.

"Bluestreak has been somewhat distracted of late. I felt he could use another pair of eyes watching his back."

There was no time in the midst of battle for the thought that Bluestreak was the weak link in their façade of ignorance. Red Alert put it firmly aside, knowing he was being uncharitable. If all went to plan here, it'd soon be of little importance. Catching Mirage with his optics, Red Alert held his gaze, trying to convey the import of what he was about to say. He reached into his subspace, pulling out a compact metallic disk – the transmitter Wheeljack had pressed into his hands as they headed out of the Ark.

"How close can you get to the 'Con lines?"

"As close as I need to be – if the cause is sufficient?" Mirage let his voice drift upwards on a questioning note, his wary optics and, no doubt, elaborate sensor suite scanning the device.

Red Alert risked another glance around the outcrop that sheltered them, taking advantage of Inferno's confused distraction. Megatron and Prime were exchanging insults in the centre of the battlefield. Soundwave surveyed the skirmish from a small hillock a little behind them, his cassettes covering him, and Starscream's elite Seeker trine swept overhead. A little off to the south, three of the Constructicons were engaged with Ironhide and the makeshift squad he'd been able to pull together. A good fraction of the Earth-based Decepticons, in other words, drawing the Autobots out to test their strength after the viral attack. It was as good an opportunity as they were going to get. Certainly the best they'd had in the two frustrating days since Wheeljack suggested their only workable plan.

Aware of Mirage's attention still on him, even if the spy's optics swept the skirmish in a constant survey, Red Alert nodded.

"It's sufficient."

He hefted the device, flicking a panel on its base open and arming it as Wheeljack instructed. He held it out and Mirage accepted it warily.

"This will send out a radio pulse to every Decepticon in range. It'll register as a simple location ping on Decepticon frequencies." Ratchet might not have been happy as he retooled the virus to bypass Decepticon firewalls, muttering about the evils of viral warfare, but if he was going to do this, he was going to do it carefully and well. "They won't even realise anything out of the ordinary has happened."

"A sensor ping?" Mirage studied the disk, giving Red Alert a baffled look. "That's all?"

"That's all they'll see. Make sure as many of them as possible get it."

Mirage pushed Red Alert to the ground a moment before the Security Director registered Laserbeak zeroing in on their location. Inferno dived beside them as laser fire flashed overhead, Red reaching out to pull his friend into what meagre cover there was. Mirage didn't take his optics off their attacker. The Ligier turned, drew his weapon and fired in one graceful movement, forcing the cassetticon to retreat.

"Range?" he demanded, weapon still in one hand even as he held the transmitter in his other.

Red Alert told him, relieved. "And, Mirage, if you can't do it – if something goes wrong – let me know. I'll have to try another way."

"It's that important?" Mirage asked, his voice distorting subtly as he faded from sight.

"More than you can imagine, Mirage," Red Alert murmured into thin air, not knowing if the Special Ops mech was still in range or whether he was already gone. He turned to Inferno, waving for his bewildered companion to lead the way as they headed towards the ranged fighters, ready to take Mirage's place in support of their young gunner. Even as he ducked and ran, he couldn't resist a glance over his shoulder searching the field for the long-gone spy. "More than you can possibly imagine."


	5. Starscream: Broken

**Starscream – Broken**

Starscream _ached_. Every strut and cable, every inch of his plating from the base of his thrusters to the tip of his angular wings, throbbed with the same relentless beat as his spark. It wasn't that he felt particularly ill, or in any way incapacitated. If anything, this unfocused and nagging discomfort was worse than a short, sharp blast from Megatron's fusion cannon. At least if he could point to that as the origin of his pain, he could have counted on the relief of Hook's repairs, albeit accompanied by the medic's inevitable snide commentary.

Instead he'd been aching and groaning for a full two Earth days – since not long after their pointless skirmish with the Autobots, in fact. His only relief in that time had been a certain grim satisfaction on discovering Skywarp and Thundercracker felt as bad as he did. After all, if past history was anything to go by, he'd almost certainly caught this circuit disruption, whatever it was, from one of his idiot trinemates. It was only fair they suffer too.

Unfortunately, his vindictive _schadenfreude_ had not outlasted his patience. Skywarp became a clingy wretch when he fell ill, even with as mild a dose of whatever this was as Starscream suspected he had. Given the impossibility of keeping the teleporter out of his trineleader's quarters, and the fact that Thundercracker quietly but firmly refused to be separated from the pair of them, Starscream's room had rapidly reverted to its sometime-function as a trinenest. For a few hours, when Starscream had felt at his worst, that had actually been something of a comfort, although he'd rather tear out his vocalisor than admit it out loud. Then Skywarp's over-warm plating became an irritation, Thundercracker's snores began to grate on his nerves, and Starscream had found himself driven first from his berth and then from his own quarters in search of a little peace and quiet.

He'd yet to find it. True, the corridors of the Nemesis were quieter than usual, devoid of the usual tussles that came of keeping a dozen large mechs, half of them natural fliers, cooped up in an underwater base. Even so, Starscream found it uncomfortably loud, wincing at the clang of his thrusters against the dull purple decking, and painfully aware that they'd fallen into the same thunderous rhythm as his pulsing processor ache.

The humans called this feeling 'grotty' – a sentiment Starscream, feeling every speck of this world's organic muck on his sleek wings, and lamenting the damp grime that seemed attracted to his frame, could sympathise with. They also called it 'feeling under the weather' though, and that made no sense whatsoever. Starscream would give a lot to escape from the crushing weight of water above him, to feel the sunlight and rain on his frame, and the wind rushing past his wings. Being 'under the weather' would actually do him and his wingmates some good. That fact alone, not to mention the woeful state of the rest of the Nemesis's crew, was reason enough for Megatron to forbid it.

Starscream was already in a bad mood when he signalled for admittance to the Constructicon's bay. He was in a truly foul one when he gave up on his attempts to secure entry, warned off by something between a growl and a moan in Scrapper's voice, and stalked towards the command deck instead.

As bad as he felt, that wasn't the worst of it. The nagging feeling that he knew something about this virus, and that if he could only talk to Hook he'd figure out what that was, troubled him more than any physical malady. He racked his mind, trying to articulate a problem he couldn't quite grasp. The scientist in him snarled, impatient and infuriated by the lethargic state of his processor.

He turned that fury outwards as he strode onto the command deck, unimpressed to find two of the Reflector gestalt slumped asleep in front of the monitors, and that pest of a cassetticon Rumble curled up in Megatron's throne, of all places.

Cursing, wincing as the knife-edge shriek of his own voice cut through him, Starscream wrenched at the back of the heavy chair, tilting it enough to dump the over-bold cassette to the deck before dropping it again with a resounding clang of metal on metal. He'd charged his null-rays without thinking about it, directing his left arm-weapon into Rumble's dazed face.

"If you valued your plating, you'd be grovelling right now, cassette! You have the temerity, the sheer _nerve_ to sit in the throne of our _leader_? If Megatron were here you'd be lucky to escape with your _spark_, worm. And I don't see Soundwave here to _plead_ for you, if even he would tolerate such an _insult_ to the Decepticon army as the sight of _you_ taking a seat only great mechs, _mighty warriors_, have any right to claim as their own!"

Rumble blinked at him in blank incomprehension, squinting as if even the dimmed lights permitted on the Nemesis were still too bright. Scowling, Starscream killed the charge sequence on his null rays and rebooted it for the effect alone, satisfied when the eerie, rising whine seemed to get through to Rumble and bring a look of near panic to his face.

"I… I'm sorry, Starscream…"

"_Lord_ Starscream." If Megatron had been present, Starscream wouldn't have pushed the title, recognising the difference between assertiveness and folly. As it was, with only three pitiful groundlings in the room, they would treat the Air Commander of the Decepticon Army, High Lord of the Vos and Leader of the Elite Trine, with the respect he deserved.

Rumble and his brother Frenzy would usually contest the title, and Starscream almost looked forward to the defiance, for the sake of the swift retribution that would follow. Today, Rumble merely echoed Starscream's correction in a dull mutter, dim optics dilating and contracting as if they refused to find the correct focus.

"Where _is_ Soundwave, anyway?" Starscream turned away, past his fill of the obviously defective cassette. He looked towards the main monitor, intending to question the Reflector units, only to find them still slouched in an untidy heap, nearer unconscious than merely asleep. Taking a half step forward he stumbled, startled to meet an unexpected impediment, and then more so to find Rumble had somehow dozed off where he sat in front of the Seeker. The cassette's plating was rather alarmingly warm against his pede, and Starscream frowned.

Venting a frustrated sigh, he took a moment to check the cassette's energon level and look over his intakes for blockages before placing him under the control deck's main ventilation fan. Rumble might be a groundpounder, and a disgustingly dependent cassette at that, but Starscream hadn't made it to second in command of the Decepticon forces without recognising a useful warrior, and the pointlessness of wasting such a resource, when he saw it.

Or by tolerating a situation such as this. First the Constructicons holed up in their bay, then the three petty groundlings leaving the command deck effectively unmanned. No sign yet of Megatron, or Soundwave. Both were presumably nursing their own aching heads, too weak to leave their own quarters… or even just Megatron's. Starscream had a vague memory of instructing Soundwave to escort their _mighty_ _leader_ back to his room. It was quite possible the Communications Officer had made it no further than that.

For a moment, Starscream toyed with the deliciously sweet idea of finding one of Mixmaster's more volatile explosives and tossing it into that room, ridding himself of two thorns in his side at once. There would be no joy in that victory though, no pride, not even a shadow of the tattered shreds of honour Starscream still wrapped around him. And, if he were honest, no real benefit either. Starscream was always quick to point out his leader's failings. He would have no hesitation in stepping into the breach if Megatron were to fall, and every part of him craved the respect he deserved, not only from his own kind but from every Decepticon on Earth, Cybertron and beyond. But the simple truth was that here, now, facing the Prime and his Autobot elite with a mere handful of warriors, and as much as Starscream hated the fact, Megatron was needed.

No, Starscream mused as he settled himself in the throne so recently vacated by Rumble. Let Megatron live, for now, on Starscream's sufferance. If for no other reason than that misery loves company, and if Starscream had to tolerate aching limbs and a throbbing processor that wanted to escape his helm, then Megatron should not be spared his own ailments. He only hoped Megatron was suffering as badly as the rest of the groundpounders. A thought skittered at the edge of his consciousness, telling him there was something significant there. The glorious mental picture of Megatron curled into a ball of aching misery drove it away. It might teach him a little respect – and to appreciate the inherent superiority of the Seeker frame. It was painfully apparent that an ailment that downed even the strongest grounder had barely given the Vosian contingent a few sniffles.

Basking in his smug self-satisfaction, conveniently overlooking the stream of mental complaints that he'd been logging over the last day, Starscream sat back in the throne and considered the mess his crew – and right now it _was_ his crew – was in. Drumming the servos of his left hand on the throne's thick armrests, Starscream activated his com.

"Skywarp, Thundercracker, get your afts up to control deck now. You're taking the monitor shift."

"But, Screamer…"

"We're _ill_, Starscream."

"Not _that_ ill," Starscream corrected ruthlessly. He stretched a bit to give Reflector an unnecessary but deeply satisfying kick. "Unless you want me to believe you're no better than the groundpounder pestlings lying at my feet."

Thundercracker paused, as if he was genuinely considering it, but the stoic Seeker's pride wouldn't tolerate such an insult even if he had to rise from his deathbed to prove it wrong.

"We'll be there in a breem."

Starscream nodded in satisfaction, letting the slight delay slide. He could do that for his trine, particularly when he was denying them the greater pleasure. He shifted com frequencies.

"Dirge, Ramjet, Thrust – I don't care if your wings are peeling and your thrusters are about to melt. I want you out on patrol in two hundred astroseconds. Report to Thundercracker."

This time he cut off the com without waiting for the flyers' protests. His Seekers might be ailing, and cursing his name right now, but they were well enough to hold the Nemesis together. They'd thank him when Lord Megatron was forced to grate out a 'thank you' from between gritted denta. And he wouldn't even be able to accuse Starscream of overstepping his authority. After all, he was only doing his duty as second in command…

Still smiling smugly, Starscream paused to chase up the glimmer of uncertainty that followed that thought. Something about being second, about Megatron and this virus that affected grounders so much worse than his own kind. Shifting in his seat, Starscream vented a sharp sigh, twisting a little to rub at his left shoulder thruster. It still ached from a chance Autobot shot at the minor battle two days before. They'd barely finished assessing the damage from that fiasco before Megatron started swaying on the command deck. It wasn't as if Starscream could even remember what the point had been. Why did Megatron feel they needed to test out the Autobots' readiness anyway? The Decepticons were just lucky the Autobots' Primus-damned tactician hadn't been on the field…

Starscream's thrusters choked into life with a strangled scream. He suppressed the shock reaction with an effort, drawing in a sharp vent that tasted of burnt energon and ionised air. Recovered memories flickered in front of his optics. The virus – engineered from the start to affect groundlings with maximum effect. Its long design process, so intimately driven by Starscream's hatred for its target that even the temporary, partial effects the Seekers were feeling had blocked it from his memory. He clenched his fists. Their own weapon turned back against them, either mutated enough to bypass Decepticon data security as it had meagre Autobots firewalls or… or deliberately recoded to that effect.

Starscream was on his feet before he'd processed the thought. Crouching down, he grabbed the nearest Reflector unit by the shoulders, shaking the smaller mech.

"The prisoners! Where are the prisoners? Are they still secure? Wake up, damn you!"

The mech – Spyglass, or was it Viewfinder? – blinked dim optics at Starscream, threatening to go offline again any second.

"Wh…what prisoners?"

Starscream gave him a harder shake, his only reward a hacking cough as the gestalt mech tried to clear choked vents that might not even be his own. Certainly the second unit slumped over the monitor desk looked as if he were overheating just as badly. Disgusted, Starscream dropped the smaller Decepticon, ignoring the tinkle of glass that spoke of future repair work for Hook.

He stalked past a startled Thundercracker in the doorway, Skywarp yelping and hurrying to get out of his way as he shot his trinemates a fierce glare. Cursing, Starscream headed down, into the dark and dank depths of the Nemesis. He charged his null-ray as he went, wishing, not for the first time, for the reassuring solidity and destructive power of Megatron in his hand. They'd come so far, so close. He'd be damned to the Pit if he let that go to waste now.

* * *

><p>There was only one prisoner in the cell-block. Jazz's visor was dark, his systems stuttering and skipping in his recharge, their intermittent whir scarcely audible.<p>

Starscream stared at the saboteur, non-plussed. In truth, until he saw the black and white mech, Starscream had virtually forgotten about his existence. The flare of memory that returned to him on the command deck had entirely focussed on the Autobots' second in command, his loathing for the Praxian overriding all other considerations. This mech was of no consequence by comparison.

Right now, all the classified material Jazz might be privy too, all his unique skills and insight into Autobot tactics were less relevant than the fact that he was here. Starscream's first impulse on seeing Jazz alone had been to live up to his name, crying out in impotent fury. But if there was one thing Starscream knew without a doubt about his cursed Autobot counterpart, it was that Prowl would never willingly have left another Autobot alone and injured in that cell. And if the condition of the Autobots' third was any indication, their second could hardly have left under his own strength in any case. He hadn't gone. He'd been taken.

"Soundwave." Starscream grated the name out between clenched teeth. Megatron had entrusted the opening stages of the Autobots' interrogation to the telepath. As much as Starscream protested that decision, alone and in the privacy of his own processor he could admit to a certain sense of relief. He'd known all along that sooner or later he'd have to face his opposite mech-to-mech, but let Soundwave break him first.

The Decepticon third in command matched his Autobot counterpart for ruthless practicality, without the weak morals to suppress it. He could keep the captives alive indefinitely, more than half starved, whimpering in pain, but never succumbing to the call of their oh-so-precious Matrix. Whether it took weeks, months or years to bring Prowl to his knees, Starscream could wait. Their virus had ensured they'd have the time. The same virus now loose in the Nemesis, bringing the Decepticons themselves close to kneeling.

Soundwave, Starscream was sure, had no more resistance than any of his fellow pathetic ground-dwellers. He was no doubt curled up somewhere, either a tight ball of agony, or sleeping off the aches and pains. Rumble's poor and untended state on the command deck attested to that. But when had Soundwave been overtaken, and what had he done with Prowl first?

Starscream vaguely recalled a disturbance as they returned from their chastening Autobot encounter – an escape attempt, albeit one doomed to failure from the start. The captives had already been skirting the edge of starvation, Soundwave tuning their rations to the bare minimum needed to keep them active and aware of their surroundings. Their failed attempt to flee while most of the Decepticons were absent had almost been impressive by some standards, and deeply pathetic by others – they'd actually broken out of their cells and made it across a deck and a half before collapsing in a heap, left where they fell until the Constructicons on monitor duty could be bothered to round them up.

So… an attempted escape, and a gleam behind Soundwave's deep red visor as he promised Megatron he'd make sure the Autobots 'understood the consequences' of such folly. Starscream hadn't seen the mech again until almost eighteen hours later when, already shaky himself but careful not to show it, he'd laughed in an ailing Megatron's face for his weakness and casually summoned Soundwave to deal with him.

Starscream straightened, a vicious smile tightening his face for a moment as he stared down at the inert form of Jazz. From the looks of it, the Autobot saboteur had not refuelled since well before the skirmish. That was lax of Soundwave, running close to the risk of deactivating the mech permanently. He'd not have allowed that to happen had he not been distracted, even in the hours before he was so rudely interrupted.

Starscream strode along the corridor, around a corner and followed the curve of the ship's hull to the interrogation chamber set against it. He opened the door. His lips curled, torn between a disgusted grimace and a smile of the deepest satisfaction.

Distracted by an interrogation session… one left unfinished for far too long.

Prowl looked surprisingly intact for a mech subject to Soundwave's slender mercies for a full orn. His paintwork was scratched and pitted, coated in the grime that pervaded these lower decks of the Nemesis. His helm carried several large dents, the chevron mount broken and empty, and after the abortive escape it came as no surprise to see that Soundwave had taken steps to limit his captive's mobility, cutting key cables in both ankle joints.

Despite that, most of the damage appeared cosmetic… until Starscream found his gaze drawn inevitably and inexorably to the sensory appendages that were both a mirror and a mockery of his own elegant wings.

Prowl was pinned by his door-wings. Long bolts had been driven cruelly through the sensitive panels and deep into the wall behind. His pedes touched the ground, barely, forcing the always-upright, always-proper mech to strain, taking as much weight as he could on his toe plates. Balanced like that, the position would have been excruciatingly painful but bearable. Perhaps that was all Soundwave intended when he'd left Prowl here, intending to return in a few breems, a few Earth hours even. If so, the torment had turned into a more profound torture when illness and amnesia swept the telepath in their path. Starscream had no idea how long Prowl had held out. He was willing to bet it had been longer than Soundwave had expected. It hadn't been long enough.

At some point in the last two days, all Prowl's remaining strength hadn't been sufficient and the bolt holes were jagged and torn, elongated where they'd felt the full force of his weight when his legs gave way. The long tears crossing nearly a third of the upswept panels were only the most obvious of the damage. Acid scars surrounded them, some deep enough that cables and sensor nodes were exposed to the damp air, their insulators bubbled and warped. The tips of the door-wings themselves, usually tapering to a fine point that mirrored Prowl's missing chevron, had been battered and bent, the edges of each panel curled over and twisted where heavy fingers had left their mark.

Even with Prowl deeply unconscious, his door-wings twitched, unable to suppress the agony of the signals from so many damaged sensors. With his vents virtually silent and his optics dull, that slight movement was the only indication Prowl's Decepticon counterpart had that a spark still burned in that battered frame.

Starscream took in the sight in a kind of breathless wonder, cringing inside. His wings, several times the size of Prowl's, throbbed in sympathy and he hated himself for every moment of it.

No one knew how long it had been since the first Praxians had left the great airborne edifice that was Vos to found their own city-state. Every surviving Praxian, every last Vosian Seeker, knew precisely how long it had been since Praxus fell, dragging both kindred into a Pit from which they'd likely never recover.

"You had to do it." The words scratched their way from Starscream's throat unbidden. He hovered in the doorway of the interrogation room, his gaze fixed on Prowl's darkened optics. "You had to be so slagging _good_. Megatron took your everything and it wasn't enough for you to survive. You had to be the _best_. You had to do what you believed in, and you had to be so _slagging good_ at it."

It didn't even occur to Starscream that he could be describing himself. He shifted from foot to foot in the doorway, not knowing what kept him outside the room.

"You had to work your way up until you stood by Prime's side, forcing me to face you in every battle, to see your Primus-damned face every time I stepped outside this ship. Forcing me to _remember_. Why couldn't you just _die_, Prowl, like so many other pathetic groundlings? Why couldn't you let me _forget_?"

Prowl's inert form mocked him with its silence and he strode into the room before thinking about it, reaching out to grasp the smaller mech's shoulders. With a single wrench, Starscream pulled Prowl off the wall, the rents in his door-wings tearing wider and longer as he did so.

Prowl screamed, the agonised sound torn from deep within him, and Starscream found himself screaming too, a shaft of pain sweeping across his own wings. Whether it was some effect of the air currents in the room across their complex array of sensors or just the echo of agony from long ago, even Starscream couldn't be sure.

The Autobot's optics flickered dimly, dulled by pain and exhaustion, his energy levels as low as his fellow captive's. It was doubtful they could see anything worth a flick of Starscream's wingtips, even in the brief moments they were active. Prowl writhed in Starscream's grip, inarticulate sounds of pain wrung from his vocalisor. Starscream shook him, watching his helm loll, searching for any sign of rationality.

"Can you hear me? Are you still _in_ there? Or have I done it at _last_ – rid myself of the chain Primus dropped around my _neck_?"

There was no response, or nothing coherent. Starscream slapped the mech, hard, and then went further, digging his fingertips into the edges of the much-abused door-wings, dragging them through the soft plating, all but shredding it. The Nemesis was infected, Prowl and Jazz forgotten by all but the Seeker trines. If the Autobots weren't already massing for an assault, they would be soon, Starscream's efforts to rally his Seekers notwithstanding. The time for playing, the time for delaying and lying to himself and trying to wait this out had passed. If Starscream was going to end this, he had to end it _right now_, and he'd be damned if he let Prowl slip away without at least knowing _why_.

Prowl's cry was weaker this time, his strength all but gone. Energon oozed from the fresh wounds, pumping a little harder as the Autobot drew in his first audible vent since Starscream arrived, his engine trying to rev up. His optics flickered again and this time stayed lit.

"Can you hear me, Prowl?" Looking into his captive's dim optics from a distance of a mere few feet, the Decepticon Air Commander was suddenly painfully aware of their closeness and the strange intimacy of the moment. He rejected it, physically as well as mentally, thrusting Prowl away, still held by his door-wings, before dropping the mech against the wall. Prowl landed awkwardly, propped half against it, supporting none of his own weight but watching Starscream with a pain-flooded gaze.

"We…" The word was barely a word at all. Starscream had to lean down, stilling his whining thrusters, to hear it. "… Could have been friends… once."

Of all possible things for Prowl to say at that moment it was both the best and the worst.

With that simple acknowledgement of all that lay between them, Prowl was telling him he understood, and as much as Starscream craved that understanding, he wanted to wrench it from Prowl's soul, to win it by his own strength, not be granted it as some sort of gift, some sort of cruel _mercy_.

Once they could have been friends. Once two cities, each beautiful beyond compare, graced Cybertron with their presence. The mechs of both had been beautiful too, confident and graceful, revelling in their bright and precise colours. For a hundred thousand vorns, maybe more, the gleaming towers of Praxus and the flying city of Vos had been more friends than rivals. Winged Vosian Seekers had looked down on the atrophied sensor panels of their distant cousins with good-natured pity, accepting them in a way they never had other grounders, as almost worthy to walk beneath Vos's sky. Cultured, elegant Praxians had shaken their heads with amused exasperation, pointing to the beauties of the world around them and pitying their kin the sky-craving that overrode all else.

When Cybertron had been rent by civil war, there wasn't one mech in a hundred who'd have predicted the twin cities would find themselves torn apart like any other family.

"He used you." Starscream spat the words, pacing the confines of the interrogation room. "_Megatron_. That bastard Megatron _used_ you, used me, used us _all_."

For the Seekers, Megatron's promises of power, of glory and the freedom of not just one sky but many, of them all in fact, had been potent lures. Praxus, with its pedes planted deeper in the metal plates of their home world and the fears of its neighbours, had tried to stay clear entirely, but the logic Praxians valued so highly steadily became inescapable. More and more Praxians had taken Autobot colours. Prowl had just been one of many, as Starscream had simply been the highest ranked of so many Seekers. Nonetheless, the pair of them had risen to their mirrored ranks, become a potent symbol of all that had gone wrong in the Primus-forsaken war. Autobot facing Decepticon, Praxian versus Vosian, gazing at one another across battlefield after battlefield.

"Were we _mad_? Did we think he wouldn't _notice_?" The emphasis turned his voice into a screech, as if mere pitch could make the question any more painful. Had they even noticed themselves? With so many targets in those early years, did the Seekers even notice themselves veering away from their ground-based kindred when another target presented itself? With so much of the battle ground-locked, and Seeker-kind soaring with effortless grace, was it any wonder that deadly Praxian rifles felled legion after legion of grounder Decepticons while the rare sight of a Seeker falling from the sky could bring an entire battle to a halt?

Starscream swore, looking down at the mech he'd cursed and blamed across the millennia.

"You were the _strategist_, Prowl. How could you not see what he'd _do_? How did you _miss_ it?"

He knew why he'd missed it himself. Enamoured of the cause, of the power, of the mech himself, he hadn't yet seen Megatron for what he was. He'd take that failure to the Matrix, or the Pit, whichever would take him. He intended to make sure Prowl did the same.

"Slag it, Prowl! We were still thinking one mech at a time, each making a choice. Megatron took those choices away. He _used_ Praxus."

Denying the Autobots a powerful city-state had been part of the equation for certain. Cowing his enemy had been another, although the grim fate of Praxus recruited more to the Autobot cause than a dozen of Prime's empty speeches. Neither of those had been Megatron's primary goal and Prowl had to know that as well as Starscream himself. Starscream would see that Prowl died knowing it.

"He used Praxus to _break us_: you and me, the Praxians you had left, the Seekers at my wing."

Starscream remembered the day, burned too deep into his memory core to ever be deleted. The orders to take Praxus down to its foundations. The last argument with Megatron that he'd ever actually expected to win. The realisation that he wouldn't. Winnowing the ranks. Loyalty demanded. Examples made; not just trines but whole flights burning where they stood. Megatron had a dozen armies at his command, but it was the Vosian Seeker wings that bombed Praxus into rubble. Starscream had flown with them, cried with them.

"He used Praxus to _break_ us."

When Vos fell out of the sky less than half a vorn later, sabotaged on Megatron's order, the Seekers had no tears left to shed and nowhere left to go.

"So why didn't you see it coming, Prowl? Why didn't you _warn_ me? Why couldn't we have done something… _anything_?"

Strident demand still echoing around the small chamber, Starscream spun to face his counterpart, his mirror image, the mech with whom he'd always wanted to share his guilt, and yet had somehow known he never would.

Sometime during Starscream's impromptu interrogation, Prowl had passed out, a shadow of grief and pain on his usually implacable face.

"_He broke us_," Starscream whispered again, but his spark throbbed with a pain and grief all of his own. For all that his nemesis lay before him, body torn and spark slowly fading, he knew that there was only one broken mech in this room.

It wasn't Prowl.

The anguish faded from Starscream's expression, replaced by the implacable coldness that had entered his soul hundreds of vorns before. He'd stopped believing in right and wrong, fairness and mercy, and even pride and nobility, the night he'd hovered far over a ruined city, watching Autobot teams pick hopelessly through the rubble. All that mattered now was strength and power, keeping the Seekers he had left alive, and gaining revenge while he could – all the while knowing the one mech truly culpable was the one he'd never dare touch.

The ruin of metal and energon in front of him wasn't a Praxian. The ruins of Praxus lay far, far away, the ruins of Vos accompanying them into eternity. The mech in front of him was an Autobot officer, and nothing was more important now than ensuring he was not rescued.

Exorcising the one ghost of his past he'd never been able to escape… that was merely a bonus.

There was no emotion visible on his faceplates as he raised his null ray, aiming it without hesitation at dull chest-plates and the straining systems beyond.

"Wait for me in the Pit, Prowl."

The sound of weapons fire echoed through the Nemesis, fading into a still, shocked silence.


	6. Mirage: Familiar Strangers

**Mirage – Familiar Strangers**

The shot rang through the corridors of the Nemesis, the sharp whine of it echoing and re-echoing as it faded into silence.

Tense, wary, Mirage held his firing stance, arm outstretched and braced against the recoil, vents stilled. His optics and other, less obvious, senses scanned his surroundings constantly, sparing no more than a part of his attention for Starscream as the Seeker spasmed.

Tendrils of electricity played across the Air Commander's frame, his limbs jerking in an uncoordinated dance of stray nerve impulses. Mirage watched without emotion, not moving until he was certain the glow had faded utterly from red optics. Only then did he subspace his electro-rifle, stepping forward to inspect the fallen flier. He grimaced, annoyed at his own lack of elegance.

Coming across Starscream framed in the doorway, arm cannon raised and an implacable determination in his voice, threatening whoever lay beyond with such vehemence, Mirage hadn't had time to do more than snap-aim and fire. There hadn't been time for precision, and even if Mirage had tried for a killing shot, his angle would have made it awkward. Instead, the fading tendrils of static spread from a broad, untidy scorch mark obscuring the Decepticon sigil on Starscream's left wing. Still, the shot had accomplished his primary intent. It probably wouldn't take the Seeker long to shake off, but for now he was well and truly stasis-locked, downed by both the electric shock and the feedback from his delicate wing sensors.

He'd fallen across the doorway, wedged by wing and shoulder thruster. Mirage took a moment to curse Starscream for being an awkward slagger even unconscious, before edging cautiously past. The silence from the room beyond, from whoever Starscream had been confronting, was troubling. But not, he realised at first sight of the victim, entirely surprising.

The mech was a mess. Somewhere under the dents and scrapes, under the layers of grime and energon – both fresh and long-since dried – his armour plating had once been black and white. Now it was an almost uniform grey, only the deep scarlet of an Autobot emblem, peaking out between scuffs and smears, provided any colour at all. Certainly there was no colour in the darkened optics. Given the state of the mech's door-wings, hanging in ragged tatters, coated in fresh, pink energon, and scarcely recognisable as such, that was probably a mercy. At least Mirage hoped so.

Expression grim, Mirage squatted by the mech's side, resting first a hand and then his helm against the damaged mech's chassis trying to feel any kind of vibration. He wouldn't put it past Starscream to rant at an empty frame, even to fire upon it, as he'd been threatening to do. Looking at the damage this mech had taken over the last orn, and the amount of energon he'd lost to the decking on which he lay, that possibility was very real.

It came as a relief to detect first the barest whisper of vents and then the deeper, although irregular, throb of a spark-pulse. Mirage sat back with a sigh of his own vents. The mech was alive, albeit barely. Now it was up to Mirage to ensure he stayed that way – at least until Ratchet could take over.

Working quickly, aware all the time of the unconscious Seeker blocking the doorway and the threat of others nearby, Mirage checked his rescuee over for critical damage, scanning the abused door-wings with a wince, checking for any break in their primary energon lines, and more than a little surprised when he didn't find one. Huffing a little and frowning at the quantity of fresh energon in confusion, Mirage sat back on his heels before slowly, very carefully, easing the slender frame into his arms. He could only assume that the mech's self-repair systems had already healed whatever rift had caused the worst of the leakage, although he'd honestly be surprised if they were working at all.

Getting back out past Starscream required nothing more than a sharp kick to dislodge the Air Commander, and a careful placement of his feet, stepping over the resulting heap as Starscream clattered to the ground. Finally out in the corridor, Starscream left sprawled inelegantly behind him, Mirage looked down at his rescuee's slack faceplates, considering his options.

Mirage and Bumblebee had been sent to find two mechs, not one, and he'd be damned to the Pit if they left without them both, or at least without both frames. Whether or not he knew these mechs, and he was still reeling from Red Alert's post-skirmish briefing on that account, he wouldn't leave any Autobot in Decepticon hands. Bad enough he'd left them this long. Both he and Bee had been inclined to leave at once for the Nemesis on learning of their mission. Mirage's guilt at not doing so had already been gnawing at him before he saw the abuse this mech had suffered. True, giving the virus the forty-eight hours both Ratchet and Red Alert insisted on had turned this mission from a near suicidal foray into the heart of enemy territory into something a little more survivable. That didn't make it right.

What Mirage was about to have to do wasn't right either.

The door-winged mech in his arms wasn't particularly heavy, taken on a scale that included mechs like Prime or even Ironhide and Ratchet. On the other hand, Mirage didn't have the lifting power of others on the Ark crew. Already servos in his arms were aching with the strain, and he was far from happy to have both his hands occupied and weaponless. If he had any hope of finding his second target, and dealing with whatever else he found when he did, he needed to be unencumbered.

It took Mirage several minutes to find what he was looking for – an unsecured closet with just enough room on the floor to lay out the injured mech. He did so as gently as possible, taking care to straighten the damaged door-wings insofar as he could, before reaching into his subspace for an energon shot. He didn't bother trying to wake the mech, or even tap a line. He went straight for the mech's emergency fuelling port, using a medical override that all Special Ops mechs knew, and tried to make sure Ratchet didn't know they knew, to open it. Right now, and given the alarmingly feeble signs of life he was still detecting, there was no time for half measures.

He couldn't afford to wait and see if the full cube's worth of energon made a difference. If he was going to leave this mech alone in enemy territory, then best do it sooner rather than later and return as rapidly as possible. Mirage stood, backing out of the room with deep reluctance. Swearing inside, he took a chance, pinging Bumblebee with a location alert. Starscream would be waking any time now, and while they were now several corridors away from the interrogation chamber, they were still too close for Mirage's liking. The less time this one spent alone, the better. Bumblebee should be done with his own task – mining the Nemesis' launch tower – soon enough. They could rendezvous here as well as anywhere else. He'd already discarded the thought of rejoining his mini-bot partner at the sub as originally intended.

Whatever state the second mech was in, and Mirage wasn't optimistic, he'd need Bee's help to get both out.

Turning on his heel, resolute, Mirage raised a hand to his face, checking the function of his electro-disruptor. He was getting close to the Nemesis brig now, unless he'd somehow become turned around. He needed to be wary of guards, as well as the surveillance cameras that grew in number as he approached the restricted area.

* * *

><p>The small, monitor-lined chamber outside the converted storeroom should have held at least one guard on duty, and more likely two, with high-ranking prisoners in thrall. In any other circumstances, Mirage, on finding it empty, would have assumed this was a trap, or a highly suspicious circumstance at the very least. Instead he was thanking Primus for Red Alert, Wheeljack and Ratchet, even as he eased cautiously inside.<p>

It wasn't infiltrating the Nemesis per se that was particularly dangerous. Both Mirage and Bumblebee had done so more than once before. For a fit, alert Autobot, able to work off reserve power, close their oxygen vents and make the difficult swim to one of the lower-deck airlocks, it was challenging but far from impossible. It was getting out again – particularly after a jailbreak with damaged and drained mechs in tow – that would make this mission so difficult without something to deplete and distract the enemy ranks. That was where the Decepticon-programmed and Autobot-modified virus came into its own. By all appearances, Starscream aside, the Nemesis crew had forgotten their prisoners entirely.

At least Mirage had to hope that was their reason for leaving the cells unmonitored. The other possibility was far more ominous – that they'd seen no need to post a guard over a greyed-out frame.

The monitors in the room were dark, but the cameras might be recording nonetheless and with the Seeker-trines still potentially active, Mirage couldn't take the chance of them transmitting. He took a moment to hack the security console. Frowning in concentration, he wiped the last few hours of video records ship-wide and then fed a very careful feedback loop into the cell-block cameras.

It was as he straightened from leaning over the console that he noticed the box shoved carelessly beneath it. He drew it out, driven more by curiosity than need, gasping at the sight of an Autobot-branded acid-pellet rifle as well as the more standard blaster inside. He subspaced them quickly, reaching into the box again, more carefully this time, to bring out a set of seven knives, three of them with vibro-blades, the other four with the dull glow of dormant energon weapons. They spanned a full range of sizes, and each was exquisitely balanced, the faint traces of long-term damage on them carefully repaired and smoothed out. Mirage took a moment to admire the set, envy it even, before adding it to his subspace pocket, resolved to return it to its rightful owner if possible… if that owner still lived.

Long accustomed to the poor state of the Nemesis, Mirage produced a small vial and lubricated the hinges of the cell-block door before easing them open. He slipped inside as silently as he knew how, wary of any stray guards and still shielded by his electro-disrupter. Only when he was quite sure he was the only active mech in the block did he pause, just to the left of the doorway, to study the still form slumped in the furthermost cage-like cell.

This mech seemed at first glimpse to be in better shape than his peer, although that might just be because he lacked the far-too-vulnerable door-wings to show the damage. This mech's paintwork was as badly abraded, and as energon streaked, as the other's. The plating of his legs was torn, long claw marks suggesting he'd been mauled by Ravage, and in places the protective armour was missing entirely. A particularly deep gouge on his thigh reflected the light with the dull iridescence of coagulated energon, lit from within from time to time by arcing electrical sparks. The mess was streaked with black, the entire mech coated from head to foot in a patchy layer of the slime that infested these lower decks on the Nemesis and had worked its way into the inviting open wounds.

He lay awkwardly a few inches from the barred wall of his cage, his hands drawn in to his chest, and his head tucked into his body. As Mirage watched, the mech twitched. His helm lifted a little from the ground giving Mirage a clear view of the sensory horns to either side of it – one crushed, the other intact but showing the coarse surface texture of half-healed plating. His visor flickered, so dim that in any other light it would have gone unnoticed, and there was a faint whir from his vocalisor.

"Who… who's there?" The mech – Jazz, the Special Ops mech with the visor was _Jazz_, Mirage remembered from his briefing; the door-winged Praxian was _Prowl_ – didn't even try to move from his inelegant sprawl on the floor. Either he was conserving his energon, or he had none left to spend, most likely the latter. "Raj? Raj, that you?"

Still invisible to every conventional Cybertronian sense, Mirage had been… startled that the other registered any presence at all. He was frankly shocked that the mech had not only identified him, but done so by a name he allowed precious few to use, all of them close friends.

He faded into view, already in a crouch beside the damaged mech. Reaching into subspace, he pulled out another emergency shot, this time taking the time to slip an arm around Jazz's shoulders and raise his head just enough to sip at the glowing liquid. The Decepticons routinely kept their prisoners enervated enough to be sluggish. The last forty-eight hours of total neglect, on top of whatever abuse they'd taken before that, seemed to have pushed both Jazz and Prowl into near-critical starvation instead.

"Easy there, Jazz." Reassurance didn't come easy to Mirage and he knew he sounded stiff and awkward. He was about as comfortable talking to strangers as Wheeljack, and not nearly as skilled an actor as Bumblebee. It had been easier with the other one – unconscious mechs didn't need names or pointless words. "I'm going to get you out of here."

Jazz spluttered and struggled weakly, his vents harsh and strained. He managed to sip half the small cube, most but not all of it going into the appropriate intakes, before pushing Mirage's hand away.

"No, Raj, leave me. Ya… ya've gotta find Prowl. They… they took him, Raj. Days ago. They didn' bring him b…back. Ya gotta find him. They t…took him and they left me here t' st…starve."

Mirage wasn't the most empathetic of mechs. Even if he had been, a visor hid a lot of any mech's emotion. It would take a blind mech though not to see the fury in Jazz's expression and the desperate fear it couldn't come close to masking. He tightened his grip, drawing Jazz in towards his chest-plates, bringing the energon shot back up to his lips and forcing him to choke down a little more.

"I already found him."

Suddenly the hand resting loosely on Mirage's wrist gripped him tight enough to hurt. Jazz's worried, pain-filled expression had been replaced by one of total focus and the glow behind his visor brightened.

"Ya found him? Where…? How is…?"

As much as he wanted to reassure the mech, lying wouldn't help. Jazz's grip was already slackening, his strength fading, and Mirage extricated his arm, easing the mech a little more upright and pressing another energon shot into Jazz's hand as he did so.

"Not good. He should be safe for now. I had to find you."

"And ya left him _alone_?" Jazz had finally finished the first cube, letting it fall between his fingers. He managed to sit upright, swaying dangerously until Mirage braced him. The mech's visor brightened, became _too_ bright in fact, flaring before fading back to a dull glow. "Mirage, when we've got outta this and Ratch's finished his rantin', you and I are gonna have _words_."

The mech was barely able to hold himself sitting upright. His ravaged legs hadn't so much as twitched since Mirage arrived, and he was still dangerously under-energised. His vocalisor hissed with static, his flickering visor suggesting momentary lapses of consciousness. Mirage had rarely seen a mech this badly damaged awake, let alone coherent. And he still found himself backing away slightly, an unaccustomed shiver of fear rippling through him.

He'd seen some of the files Red Alert had recovered on Jazz – enough of them to guess that what the files _weren't_ saying would make for more interesting reading. Bluestreak had assured him that Jazz was a friend – everyone's friend, in fact. That was something of a relief because right now, Mirage was far from sure he'd get out of that promised conversation fully functional.

There wasn't time to wonder about that now though. Venting a sigh, refusing to show his anxiety, Mirage turned his attention to assessing Jazz's condition.

"The sooner we get you mobile, the sooner we can return to him."

"Right…"

The outburst seemed to have drained the damaged mech's strength. He slumped, and would have fallen back to the damp deck-plates had Mirage not caught him and eased him into a lean against the bars. He waved a vague hand at his lower half, even as he raised the second shot to his lips.

"Ma legs," he muttered, licking his lip plates to recover a stray drop of energon. "Left one's broken, but ya can brace it. Right should be okay, jus' torn up a bit." He paused, not looking at Mirage. "Soundwave killed the data c'nection."

With a nod, the spy redirected his attention to the Jazz's hips, wincing a little when he saw that the hard-link interface ports on both hips had been forced, their covers hanging loose. He eased the nearest open, trying to ignore Jazz's flinch. The mess of sensitive cables behind it was snarled and kinked, as if a strong hand had grabbed the bundle and given a hard yank. Towards the front though, stretched out to be clearly visible, a set of nerve connections hung loose, not cut or broken but simply disconnected so jack and plug hung side by side.

Mirage vented again, confused. Repairing this was as simple as re-securing a half-dozen plugs, something that would only take a few klicks. He glanced up at the mech. Jazz had to know that, and even weak as he was, he surely had the flexibility to reach his own…

Jazz's visor met his optics, expression blank. Without looking away, the damaged mech brought up one of his hands, spreading it so Mirage could see what he'd missed before. Every single one of Jazz's finger servos had been snapped, systematically disabling his capacity for fine manipulation. Holding the cube, holding Mirage, had to have been agony. Even now, Jazz's fist kept trying to cycle closed, whining motors grating and grinding as they tried to manipulate broken struts and cables.

Mirage couldn't stop his sharp vent and shocked optics from showing his dismay. He tried not to imagine what Jazz had gone through these last few days, separated from his companion, knowing that all he needed to move was the briefest of repairs but unable to muster the fine control to make them.

Wordlessly, Mirage bent over the black-plated hip, reconnecting the data stream with deft fingers and then holding Jazz upright as the mech trembled. The renewed contact with his damaged right leg couldn't be comfortable, and Jazz's already unsteady vents hitched into silence for several long seconds. He shuddered, his visor fading out, and Mirage had to shake his shoulders, calling his name before it rebooted, glowing dully.

"Right…" Jazz didn't look at Mirage. His voice was barely above a whisper. "Now th' other."

The left leg was the more severely injured of the two, its main strut snapped clean through, plating missing to expose the damage to the damp atmosphere. Mirage took a moment to pull a splint from the emergency med-kit all Special Ops mechs carried, noting the total lack of surprise in Jazz's expression as he straightened the leg and braced it. Even with the limb supported, Mirage hesitated for a long moment before restoring the data connection.

Jazz took another mouthful of the enriched energon shot, dropping the now-empty cube and scowling. "Do it, Raj! We've gotta get t' Prowl!"

Mirage nodded, taking a deep vent himself before securing all six jacks in a quick flurry of movement. He'd turned and caught Jazz before the other mech could hit the floor, not surprised to find him stasis-locked from the pain. Shaking his head, Mirage ruthlessly upended a third energon ration into Jazz's emergency port, worrying now at having only given Prowl a single shot before leaving him. Only when the mech's energy levels read somewhere above 'emergency shutdown imminent' did Mirage reach for another medical protocol that Ratchet would have fits at him even knowing about.

Jazz came out of stasis with surprisingly little fuss. He didn't move, his quiet vents only giving away his change of status if you were listening hard for them. Jazz lay still for a moment before rebooting his optics, visor scanning Mirage and then his surroundings cautiously.

What little doubt Mirage had been harbouring, even at a subconscious level, about the identity of this mech evaporated. If he wasn't Special Ops, he had all the relevant training and instincts he needed to be.

"Jazz, we've got to move. Can you get up?"

Jazz blinked his optics once, before the visor flared. "Prowl!"

He stood, bracing against the cage bats and against Mirage's hand on his back-plates, and still swaying. From the way he tilted his helm, trying to steady himself, Mirage had to guess the damaged sensory horn was affecting his balance. Either way, he managed a wobbly step, static leaking from his vocalisor as his left leg took the weight, and didn't fall.

"Give me a weapon, Mirage."

It was an order. One, Mirage had been told, that Jazz was technically entitled to give. Despite that, Jazz was shaky, wobbling where he stood, and as sure as Mirage was of his new companion's training, he didn't have the experience on which to build trust. He almost refused, prepared to look the mech optics to visor as he did so, and then he stopped. There was a fierce need in Jazz's body language that only another highly trained mech would pick up upon, and he knew exactly what it was.

Mirage had never loitered in Decepticon custody. His electro-disrupter field, and the swift action of his friends and commanders, had always limited his brief stays in enemy hands to battlefield interludes, brushed aside at the end of the day. He had, however, spoken to other mechs, even been along to rescue a few of them, and he knew the damage spark-destroying helplessness could do even to the strongest warriors. Perhaps most of all to the strongest. Mechs who'd been the subject of confinement, torture, even to the shame of rescue, needed to stop being subjects. They needed to take control.

Jazz couldn't hold a blaster, and certainly wouldn't be able to aim one, even assuming Mirage was prepared to allow an armed mech he didn't know at his back. Feeling a little ill, Mirage drew a mid-sized blade from Jazz's set out of his subspace and handed it over, watching as his broken hands struggled to close around it. The mech would have to be very, very good to do much damage with a six-inch vibro-blade, and in Jazz's weakened state he'd be lucky to get close enough to scratch an opponent, but the gesture seemed to help.

Jazz dimmed and rebooted his optics, before looking up with a determination that almost hid his pain.

"Get me t' Prowl," he ordered shortly.

* * *

><p>The presence of a vibrant, active energy signature beside Prowl's barely detectable one wasn't a good thing. Mirage, bowed under Jazz's weight, letting the other mech limp along leaning heavily on him, stopped in the corridor outside and tried to keep his sudden anxiety from showing.<p>

"Wha…?" Jazz's voice slurred, the short walk taking its toll on his depleted systems.

"Hush." With an effort and a grimace for the power drain, Mirage extended his electro-disrupter field around the pair of them before reaching out very carefully with an active scan.

"Mirage?" Bumblebee's soft voice floated from the room, the two Ops agents recognising one another's energy signatures at the same moment.

"Here," Mirage murmured, dropping the field. Jazz had tensed beside him when they stopped, now he made a low sound of frustration and staggered forward a step, dragging Mirage with him lest he unbalance them both. Not delaying any further, Mirage wrestled Jazz through the door and into the closet.

With Prowl flat out on the floor and Bumblebee crouched beside him, it was a tight squeeze for the four of them. Mirage found himself left mostly out in the corridor as Jazz fell to his knees with a gasp. A soft keen broke from the mech's throat, his vents harsh as his broken hands hovered helplessly over the shredded door-wings.

Bumblebee was in the process of giving Prowl another energon shot, a deep frown on the yellow mini-bot's face-plates. Mirage matched it, eying the pool of energon below Prowl's door-wings.

"I can't tell where it's coming from," Bumblebee muttered. "The primary lines look…"

Jazz had squirmed forward, leaning down over the other mech long enough to press his helm to the almost-still chest-plates and feel the faint spark-pulse against his sensory horns. He nuzzled Prowl's helm with his own as he rose, the gesture deeply affectionate and very worried indeed. His vents were unsteady, but at least they were audible, which was more than could be said for his partner. Again, his hands fluttered over Prowl's wings, and when he looked up at Bumblebee his expression was angry.

"His door-wings lose more from their second'ry and tersh'ry lines than mos' mechs do from th' primaries." He scowled, pulling Bumblebee's hands down towards the tattered plating. "Ya know that, both'a ya! Fix it!"

Bumblebee swallowed hard, clearly daunted by the delicate work Jazz was proposing. He threw a startled and panicked look at Mirage, both of them wondering how they were meant to know. Door-wings were not exactly a common appendage, and, to the best of Mirage's knowledge, not even the Ark mechs with smaller winglets had ever damaged one anywhere near this badly. Either way, Bumblebee had no choice, and not only because Jazz's fierce expression compelled him to do his best. The small yellow hands played across the torn panels as gently as possible, working on the complex process of crimping off the hundreds of minor energon conduits – directed from time to time by Jazz as he hovered over them, pointing out a more important line elsewhere when Bumblebee lingered too long over any one section.

Bumblebee's fingers fell into a rhythm under Jazz's intense gaze. And the Pit of it was, as both Bumblebee and Mirage realised, that Jazz was right. This _was_ familiar, in some way Mirage couldn't quite define. Mirage's fingers twitched, and Bumblebee's moved, switching from one door-wing to the other just as Jazz opened his mouth to voice the instruction.

Unsettled, Mirage reached into his subspace for his last energon shot and uncapped it, intending it to distract Jazz while Bumblebee finished his work. Instead, Jazz snatched it without looking. He glanced down at his fellow captive, a frown of concentration on his face, and Prowl's fuel port opened for him.

"Jazz…"

The mech didn't look up, already refuelling his companion. "He needs it more than I do."

"He's not going to have to hobble out of here," Bumblebee noted, pausing in his work just long enough to snatch a ration out of his subspace and toss it to Mirage. Mirage caught it, presenting it to Jazz with an expression that would tolerate no argument.

Jazz took it awkwardly, still using his second hand to steady the cube at Prowl's port. Finally empty, he let that one fall and downed his own in a continuous series of gulps, his fuel processor coping better for the gradual top-up it had already received. It was as if this new boost flicked a switch, somewhere deep inside the damaged mech. Jazz's stance changed, from an awkward slouch to something far more alert. Mirage's instincts screamed, and he backed up a step before even realising it, staring wide-eyed at the poised… _dangerous_ mech in front of him.

"Who did this?" Jazz demanded, the promise of death in his voice as he looked down at Prowl.

Mirage didn't hesitate, wasn't sure he could have done if he wanted to.

"I found Starscream…"

"_Starscream_," Jazz hissed, fists clenching, or at least attempting to clench, by his side. The mech didn't react to the whine of damaged servos and the grating of strut-ends in his fingers. "Raj, gimme another knife. One o' th' small ones."

Mirage and Bumblebee, fingers still working busily, shared wide-eyed looks as Jazz fumbled the small energon blade to full life. Taking a deep breath and concentrating hard to steady his hands, Jazz carved a crude but recognisable name glyph into the handle of the larger blade, his eyes flicking constantly from his work to Prowl's still face, and to Bumblebee's ongoing efforts to stem the energon flow.

He dropped the blades without a qualm, diving to his partner's side, when Prowl stirred, wingtip twitching under Bumblebee's startled hand. Shreds of metal clattered against one another, the high-pitched sound contrasting painfully against the weak, low moan that underlay them.

"Shh, Prowl." Jazz reached out, stroking Prowl's faceplates with the back of his hand. "It's gonna be okay, love. Just stay still. Bee and Raj are here. They've come for us. Everything's going to be okay."


	7. Bumblebee: Breaking Free

**Bumblebee – Breaking Free**

"Mirage, we have to move." Bumblebee hated to spoil the moment, but there were other things he'd hate more. Losing these mechs through undue delay was high up on that list.

Mirage nodded, stepping back into the corridor to check their exit route. Rather more to Bumblebee's surprise, Jazz reacted too. He looked at his mate with a last caress of his still faceplates and a low keen before backing off a few feet.

"Lift him real careful, Bee. Get a hand on his lower back…. No. A little higher. Support th' door hinge."

Bumblebee did his best to comply, aware of Jazz's visored optics following his every move. He was stockier than Mirage, and no doubt Prowl looked a little ridiculous dangling limply from his arms, but he'd be better able than Mirage to take the weight. Judging by Jazz's lack of protest, he knew that. It just went on the growing list of things this disconcerting stranger knew about them.

Mirage was back. Jazz scooped up his blades and flowed to his feet in a smooth motion without waiting for translation of the spy's nod. It wasn't until he got there that his visor flickered out and he swayed hard. Mirage caught him, steadying him as his optics rebooted. Jazz's ready stance collapsed into a pained semi-slump on the noble's shoulder.

"Primus," he choked out, cycling his optics again. He cleared his vocalisor with a soft whir, trying to reassert himself. "So I guess we're headed on down?"

It would be their usual infiltration route, coming straight in from the ocean through the second lowest of the Nemesis' submerged airlocks. With two senior officers – one of them Special Ops – in Decepticon hands, Red Alert had flatly vetoed any plan that might constitute compromised 'standard practice'. Looking down at the mech in his arms, Bumblebee couldn't help but be grateful for the unconventional plan they'd adopted instead. Jazz, for all his ragged tears and missing plating, might just cope with the salt ocean, given a thick enough layer of spray-on temporary sealant. Prowl most certainly wouldn't. Fortunately, he wouldn't have to.

"Mini-sub," Mirage murmured, taking most of Jazz's weight as they moved out into the corridor. He got a slightly wide-eyed look from their rescuee and Bee couldn't help feeling a little smug that they'd finally surprised the infinitely surprising mech.

"Human-built," he explained, trying for his usual cheerful demeanour as the Autobots' ambassador for all things human, and getting the distinct impression Jazz wasn't impressed. "Prime requisitioned one from some of our allies, and had Wheeljack and Ratchet outfit it."

Jazz nodded, grunting and venting hard with effort as Mirage helped him along. Bumblebee didn't miss the frequent glances Jazz threw back at the mech in his arms. He did his best to project a reassuring solidity, hiding his concern about the distinctly intermittent vents that whispered across his chest-plates.

Perhaps it was just the glances behind him, perhaps he was really just that good, but it was Jazz who noticed the problem first. His body, hunched over with pain, straightened through force of will alone, visor brightening.

"Camera," he hissed. "Trackin' us."

Bumblebee swore under his breath, unable to do anything. Mirage, with one arm free, pulled his blaster and took the camera in question out with one shot. It would do little good. Whoever was manipulating the camera, most likely one of Starscream's trine on the command deck, had seen more than enough.

Mirage picked up the pace, Jazz staggering more often and growing noticeably weaker as they moved along. Bumblebee followed them stolidly, still managing Prowl's awkward weight but not exactly revelling in it. None of them were surprised to find a closed bulkhead blocking their route.

They circled around it, Mirage and Bumblebee consulting in low murmurs as they compared notes from their earlier exploration. The detour took its toll, Jazz venting hard and supporting more and more of his weight against Mirage.

The noble stopped at the second closed bulkhead, this one a mere handful of metres from their destination. Jazz detached himself without comment, giving Mirage use of both hands as he popped an access panel and worked to override the bulkhead settings. The damaged saboteur swayed, still far from balanced, before propping himself against the nearest dull purple wall. He rested both hands and his forehead against it, as if anchoring himself in its solidity against an unsteady world, but his optics moved constantly, dividing his attention between Mirage's work and Prowl, lying still in Bumblebee's arms.

The small, yellow Ops agent took advantage of the respite, however brief, himself. He leaned back against the wall beside Jazz, close enough for the damaged saboteur to trail a finger over Prowl's helm and the empty chevron mount, murmuring a reassurance the Praxian couldn't hear. The sight tugged on Bumblebee's spark, all the more so because the sensitive mini-bot suspected that not just anyone would be permitted to see it.

Bumblebee was tired, both emotionally and physically. Mirage was intent on cracking the bulkhead. Even so, they should have been paying more attention. The first warning Bee had of the Seekers at the end of the corridor was Jazz snapping from exhausted to tense and alert beside him.

"Raj!" His arms full of Prowl, Bumblebee could only cry out a futile warning, knowing it was too late.

Time seemed to slow down, Bee's processor over-clocking, as Jazz launched himself off the wall. Not towards Starscream, as Bumblebee more than half expected given the snarl on his face, but rather towards Mirage. He shoulder-rammed the spy without hesitation, twisting as he did so.

The world moved with the urgency of frozen treacle. Even so, it was almost too fast to see. Jazz's thrown vibro-blade crossed Starscream's null-ray blast in thin air. Both found a target.

"Jazz!"

Mirage stumbled back under the blow that knocked him out of the line of fire. Alarmed and warned by Bumblebee's cry, he recovered just in time to catch Jazz. The saboteur's optics were dark, his chest-plates scorched from the point-blank blast that splashed against them. It looked… bad. Mirage's face went blank. Wordlessly, he swept one arm around Jazz's waist while the other tapped a final few commands into the bulkhead control.

The blockage slid open. Hauling Jazz over his shoulder with a frustrated cry of effort, Mirage dived through, Bumblebee and Prowl right behind him.

Neither Special Ops agent spared time to look at Thundercracker and Skywarp, crouching beside their fallen trine leader. Looking back would only steal vital seconds and almost certainly get them killed. Even so Bumblebee caught glimpses of Jazz's knife, buried deep in Starscream's throat, energon spilling around its carved hilt. He captured the images to memory as he carried Prowl past the open bulkhead and into another of the Nemesis's storerooms. The Seeker's choking coughs followed them through the room, and then through the hole scorched in the Nemesis' hull and into the miniature submarine beyond.

It wasn't until Bumblebee was hauling the hatch closed, Prowl dumped inelegantly on the deck of the small sub, that blaster fire started to streak past his face. The Seekers filling the doorway behind him were enraged to a point beyond reason. For the briefest of moments Bumblebee felt satisfaction to note Starscream wasn't amongst them.

Then he slammed and dogged the hatch, dodging past Mirage and hurdling Jazz as he darted to the front of the small cabin. Wheeljack had refitted the sub's hatch, rigging it to fool the Nemesis into believing its hull intact while it cut itself a new access port. Wheeljack being Wheeljack, he'd added a few extras.

Explosive bolts tore the mini-sub clear of the purple hull-plates and out into free water, leaving the Seekers a rather pressing problem to distract them in the form of a large hole in the side of their underwater base. Another switch, and Bumblebee vented the sub's tanks, the vessel shuddering and rocking as it starting an ascent far more rapid than any human could survive.

"Frag it, Bee! Hold it still!"

Circuits running cold, Bee abandoned the controls. He grabbed one of the full medical packs Ratchet had insisted they carry, noticing that Mirage already had the other open and was working feverishly on Jazz. Bee was at Prowl's side a klick later, trying to straighten the unconscious mech where he'd been tossed against the wall, door-wings crumpled beneath him, and trying to stop his attention straying across the floor to their companions.

Mirage already had Jazz's chest-plates open. Looking across Prowl, Bumblebee saw the spy send one sharp shock after another through the saboteur's darkened laser core, watching intently for some sign of response from the spark chamber beyond. Bumblebee felt sick. Swallowing hard, he turned back to his own patient, forcing himself not to think about what was happening mere feet away or the fact that Mirage, oh-so-proper Mirage, had just sworn like a trooper.

Bumblebee fell to his knees to look Prowl over, arranging him with trembling servos. Alarmed, he pressed his sensory horns – smaller and less well-developed than Jazz's – to Prowl's chest armour. With an oath of his own, he grabbed a regulator from the med-kit and planted it above Prowl's flickering laser core.

"Don't you die on me now. Don't you dare! The Hatchet would never forgive me!"

Ratchet had wanted to come on this rescue attempt. Just about everyone had vetoed that, from Mirage and Bumblebee to Ironhide, Red Alert and Prime himself. The medic was simply too valuable for a high-risk field mission, even for the sake of two Autobots they apparently held in high esteem. Trapped in the claustrophobic submarine, dark water streaming past them and with two sparks guttering under their hands, both Bumblebee and Mirage wished with all their sparks that the medic was by their side.

* * *

><p>Neither mech paid much attention when they broke surface, or when Skyfire scooped the sub up in his huge hands. The huge jet dodged Seeker-fire in root mode for just long enough to transform around them and fire his main engines, outpacing the Coneheads well before they even reached shore. Bumblebee and Mirage remained largely oblivious, hearing Skyfire's transmissions but concentrating on their rescuees to the exclusion of anything but an immediate crisis. They didn't stop working until steady hands reached around them, and only then did they realise their fellow Autobots had given up on any idea of returning the sub and simply peeled it apart to allow Ratchet and Wheeljack access to the confined space.<p>

Bumblebee let himself be pushed aside, finding Mirage beside him, both sitting with their backs against Skyfire as they watched the rescued mechs get carried away. Despite everything, they shared a relieved smile, satisfied to hand over two mechs with weak and artificially supported, but nonetheless stable, spark pulses.

Getting Jazz back had been touch and go; Mirage had nearly been ready to give up before he got a response. Stopping Prowl from fading in turn was more difficult still, and just as exhausting. Bumblebee's fingers ached from working on Prowl's abused door-wings. His processor was starting up a low throb his diagnostics put down to lack of energon, and the rest of his body added its own complaints about the dead weight he'd hauled around the Nemesis. Despite that, he felt the grim satisfaction of a task accomplished, albeit tempered by the ongoing medical crisis and the sheer confusion he still felt over the mission itself.

Mirage's smile faded as rapidly as Bumblebee's, those same things churning through his own processor. The former noble gazed across the Ark's hangar bay, towards the hatchway through which Jazz had been carried, with an expression of baffled dismay on his smooth, usually-reserved face-plates.

"He took that shot for me."

"For all of us," Bee corrected. "What do you think I could have done with you out for the count, as well as the two of them?"

Mirage tilted his head in acknowledgement, before shaking it, almost angrily. "He didn't hesitate. Weak and damaged as he was, he just threw himself into the firing line."

"Threw something else too." Bee leaned back against Skyfire. The big shuttle was in a light recharge, exhausted by his own part in the rescue. "That blade… Mirage… he's good. Very good."

"I had noticed."

"Good enough to be very dangerous."

"Good enough to be our commanding officer," Mirage reminded him bluntly. Bumblebee nodded, conceding the point rather than pressing it. Loyalty to rank was programmed deep into Mirage, but Bumblebee could see the tension in his frame. "He deserves our respect. Both of them do."

"Respect, sure," Bumblebee agreed, meaning it. He paused, glanced sidelong at his companion and then dragged himself slowly to his pedes.

"Trust…?" He put an emphasis on the word, knowing Mirage would take his meaning. Trust that there was truly no alternative when they were sent into danger. Trust that difficult decisions were walking the right side of the fine line Ops traced. Trust that when back-up was promised, it would be waiting, and that the other would be where he should, though it took a journey through the Pit to get there. Trust to have a lethal weapon – the mech himself – at their backs without their trained instincts screaming at them to neutralise it. Bumblebee shrugged. "That could take a little longer."

* * *

><p>Medbay was still a flurry of activity when Bumblebee got there. Ratchet and Wheeljack worked quickly on both Jazz and Prowl, swapping patients at Ratchet's occasional barked order. Perceptor perched on the opposite side of Prowl's med-berth, working in microscope form as he did a far better job than Bumblebee could rerouting the damaged nerves and energon lines in Prowl's door-wings.<p>

Bluestreak was acting as a gopher, blinking back lubricant as it pooled around his optics. Bumblebee couldn't help wondering whether Ratchet was too busy to kick the young mech out, whether Blue had thrown one of his occasional meltdowns, digging in his heels, or whether the medical team simply needed an extra pair of hands.

Either way, their chief medical officer might overlook Bluestreak's presence but he took note of Bumblebee's.

"Bonded?" Ratchet demanded, jerking his head towards the two prone mechs.

It was the one question Bluestreak hadn't been able to answer. Red Alert had leapt on that one apparent inconsistency in the whole scarcely-credible story, interrogating the young mech on how he could possibly _not_ know his mentors' relationship. Blue's stammered explanation that it was kind of a running joke, Jazz wanting to keep everyone guessing, hadn't made much sense. Seeing the Special Ops mech in action, and the danger this pair faced from the Decepticons up close, it was starting to make a lot more.

Even so, Bumblebee could only shrug. Prowl hadn't ever climbed as far as consciousness, but there had been a painful love in Jazz's every action. Certainly they'd both tried to fade out on their rescuers, but both were pretty badly hurt.

"If they're not, they've got a good reason for holding back," he told the medic simply.

Ratchet fixed him with a hard look, before nodding and turning back to his work. Spark-bonding changed the rules of triage, altering it from a linear series of treatments, to something more along parallel lines. For Ratchet though, it boiled down to one thing: he'd hitch a ride to the Pit before he gave either one of these patients up to the Matrix. "Great! Door-wings and a maybe-bond, Primus hates me."

Bumblebee offered an amused smile in return, sharing it with Bluestreak since the others were busy. Bluestreak tried to smile, but his expression didn't get past a kind of sickly grin. His too-bright optics and unusual quiet were worrisome. Moving wearily, Bumblebee helped himself to a couple of energon rations from the sickbay dispenser and hopped up onto the berth recently vacated by one of the twins, pulling his friend up beside him.

"C'mon Blue, let's keep out of the way, shall we?"

"They'll be okay, right, Bee?" Bluestreak whispered the words, his eyes glued to the medics in case they should need anything. His hands accepted the cube from Bumblebee, playing with it aimlessly. "I mean, I guess I knew they'd be a bit battered, being with the Decepticons and all, but they've always come back before, from just about everything, and Prowl's always been so strong, and he's always been there and… and… his poor door-wings!"

Bluestreak's own wings fluttered, vibrating with tension and sympathetic pain. Bumblebee winced, remembering the feel of shredded metal hanging loose against his arms. A nagging guilt grew in his processor as Bluestreak spoke. He'd been confused enough trying to think of Jazz and Prowl as his superior officers. With every word falling from the grey mech's lip-plates, Bumblebee was forced to face the fact that these had once been more than that. Bluestreak's obvious anxiety, his wringing hands… they were what any Ark mech deserved from another. Bumblebee looked across the room at the stasis-locked mechs, trying to feel that same personal connection. It wouldn't come, and he couldn't help but feel slightly ashamed at his lack of feeling for what must have once been his friends.

"I'm sure Ratchet'll do his best," the yellow mini-bot murmured, resting a hand on the shoulder of the mech beside him.

"And that's pretty damn good." Ratchet stepped back from Jazz, rubbing a hand his brow. "This one's stable enough for now. His hands and legs can wait. Bluestreak, if you're determined to help, you can get over here and clean him up while I get to work on those damn door-wings."

A glance at Bumblebee carried other instructions. The young Ops mech might match Bluestreak in age, close enough, but there were worlds between them in other ways. He nodded an acknowledgement of Ratchet's silent request and settled in to wait, watching as Ratchet and Perceptor moved Prowl into the surgical suite. Wheeljack followed them, pausing only long enough to give Bluestreak the solvents, disinfectants and cloths he'd need to cleanse Jazz's armour.

Bumblebee leaned back against the berth, throwing out occasional comments as Bluestreak gently wiped the dirt away, distracting the young mech from thinking too hard about who he was working on, and keeping a close optic on them both until the medics could return.

* * *

><p>"You should get back to your berth, Bumblebee."<p>

Bee jolted awake, instantly alert, and reaching into his subspace for a weapon. Ratchet folded his arms across his chest, and raised a very unimpressed brow-ridge.

"Oh, ah, sorry, Ratch." The young spy felt his plating heat in embarassment. He straightened, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand as he realised he'd dosed off on a med berth. A little to his left, Wheeljack was shooing an exhausted-looking Bluestreak towards the door. Beyond, lying still in the night-dimmed Medbay, Prowl had been wheeled back into place beside his equally silent partner. His door-wings were only partially visible, hidden by sheets and the bulk of his body, but Bumblebee caught the glint of shining fresh panels, welded into place around the tattered remains.

"How are they?"

Ratchet snorted. His expression was unchanged from earlier, but his body language was calmer. The tension Bumblebee's Ops training had made so obvious was easing.

"They're patients in my Medbay, and I'll be damned to the Pit if they're not walking out of here within the Orn."

Bee grinned, more naturally than he had for a long time.

"Ratch, you're a miracle worker."

The medic scowled at him, not exactly delighted by the praise. "Hardly. But if I gave up every time you lot brought a pair of thoroughly slagged mechs in here, I'd have lost the twins to the Matrix long ago. That's not going to happen. And I wasn't going to let these two go either." He frowned down at the smaller bot. "Now, did you take any damage? Did Mirage?"

Ratchet watched Bumblebee shake his head and vented a sigh. He threw a pointed glance towards the door through which Bluestreak had already gone. "Then what makes you think I'll put up with loiterers in my Medbay? Out, Bumblebee, before I give you a reason for being here!"

"Ratchet… wait."

Perhaps the unease in Bumblebee's voice caught Ratchet's attention, perhaps he was simply too weary to project his usual brusque demeanour. He hummed under his breath, stepping back and putting his hands on his hips.

"What is it, Bumblebee?" he asked impatiently.

"Jazz… he's Special Ops."

Ratchet raised an optic ridge, inspecting the young spy with a sweeping look. "I'll try not to hold that against him."

"Doc, he's a Special Ops agent – a _dangerous_ Special Ops agent. He's been through a Pit of a time, and last he remembers we were fighting for our lives."

It was the real reason he'd stayed with Bluestreak, despite his own weariness. His resolve had only strengthened as he watched Blue work. Swinging his legs off the berth, Bumblebee moved to Jazz's side, lifting a white forearm gently and turning it for Ratchet to see. The lines of small marks there had confused Bluestreak as he cleaned Jazz's armour. Bumblebee had avoided an explanation. Now he and Ratchet both shuddered, finding it far too easy to picture the electric shocks that had left each of the many burns.

"He's going to wake up… jittery."

Ratchet opened his mouth to protest and Bumblebee shrugged, cutting him off.

"I know you could take him, Ratchet," he only half-lied. "Just thought you could do with a bit of back-up, that's all."

As if to prove his point, Jazz's arm twisted in Bumblebee's grasp, fist starting to clench before the yet-to-be-repaired damage stopped him. Jazz snapped awake with a cry of pain, reaching through it to grasp Bumblebee's arm in a hold tight enough to hurt and using it for leverage to twist Bumblebee into an arm lock as he sat upright. Ratchet didn't even have time to react before Bumblebee twisted free. The smaller Ops agent eased back, stepping between Ratchet and the disoriented mech. Jazz's visor flickered into life several klicks after his reflexes. He blinked at Bumblebee, and then moved his attention off to the smaller bot's left. The fixed gaze confused Bee and he stole a quick glance himself, puzzled to find Jazz staring at a bare orange wall panel, before the damaged mech finally cycled down his optics.

"The Ark," he breathed on a thin vent. Tension eased momentarily from his body, and then returned. Jazz's head snapped around as if drawn on a string, his balance failing under the sudden motion. He would have fallen off the berth entirely if Ratchet hadn't dodged around Bumblebee to catch him.

"Prowl?" Jazz demanded, his visor not moving from his unconscious lover's face.

"Will be all right." Ratchet didn't hesitate. "And so will you, if you'll just _lie back_ and wait for your repairs."

Jazz let himself be eased back down, one hand coming up to hover above his sensory horn. Ratchet's initial repairs had touched on that critical system, but the damage was obvious even so.

"Lie still, Jazz," Ratchet repeated a little more quietly. "I had to replace some of the components in your right horn and repair others in both. It'll take a few days to integrate the repairs and recalibrate your sensor grid." He ventured a scowl, as if Jazz were any other patient. "Looking on the bright side, at least it'll keep you in that berth long enough for me to deal with the rest, but don't worry. I'll be kicking you out of here in no time."

"Not without Prowler." Jazz's soft statement was non-negotiable, and he reached out with one hand, as if he could close the gap to the neighbouring berth. He pushed himself up on one elbow, only to collapse back to the berth. "Don't go tellin' me you'll have him outta here in a day or two, Ratch. I saw…"

"He'll be fine," Ratchet repeated, gently but firmly. "Now recharge, Jazz, you're still a little disoriented."

"Yeah." The agreement burst from Bumblebee before he could help it. Despite the mech's enervated state, Bee was still watchful, still ready to intervene if Ratchet seemed in the slightest of dangers. He offered Jazz a wry smile when the saboteur looked up, still rubbing his twisted arm.

"Bumblebee." Jazz shook his head. "Man, Bee, I'm sorry."

Bee waved off the apology, aware of Jazz's systems already cycling back down and his visor flickering. The mech's head turned against the berth, bringing Prowl back into sight.

"_Primus_, but it's good t' be home!" Jazz's voice slurred. Ratchet watched carefully, doing something to help ease his patient back into stasis. "I never thought I'd see this place – see any of ya – again. That lyin' slagger Soundwave told us… man, the things he told us… but ya came." Jazz's visor turned to look from Ratchet to Bee, the gratitude and joy in it painful to see. "He said ya weren't comin', but we knew ya'd come for us. Man, I missed ya guys."

The last words faded into silence. It stretched out, both Ratchet and Bumblebee listening to the quiet whir of two sets of recharging systems.

Finally Ratchet shifted, venting deeply and not quite meeting Bee's optics. "All right, youngster. Time for you recharge too. He won't do that again, and I've still got a lot of work to do."

"When… when are you going to tell them?"

Ratchet looked down at the strangers on the berths in front of him. "He was right about one thing. If recalibrating his sensor net takes a few days, retraining Prowl's is going to take a solid week, even after I repair the rest of their damage. I can keep them in here most of an orn if need be. They don't need the stress of this," his arm waved, taking in the whole Ark situation, "on top of everything else they've been through." His dimmed optics played over the burns on Jazz's arm, the corners of Prowl's wings where they peeked out from protective covers, and the rest of the damage, some of it far less obvious. "They're strong. Pit, they wouldn't have got this far if they weren't! But they're going to need support, whether they realise it or not. Not more hurt and pain. I'll have a word with Bluestreak, make sure he understands that. He and I can handle it for now."

Bee ran a hand back over his helm, rubbing his neck. "And if we don't get our memories back before they leave Medbay? If we don't get them back at all?"

Ratchet vented a sigh. "Then I guess we all deal with this as best we can. I just hope to Primus we're all still sane when we come out the other end of it!"


	8. Jazz: Stranger in a Strange Land

**Jazz – Stranger in a strange land**

Jazz was not normally an uptight mech. He prided himself on keeping his cool in most situations, regardless of provocation or the behaviour of mechs around him.

One of the things that had bothered him most about his captivity – apart from the sight of Prowl's beautiful door-wings torn to shreds – had been the gradual erosion of that calm outlook on life. Getting back into his normal rhythm, back into _himself_, had been pretty much his top priority after he and Prowl were released from Medbay that morning. Sure, he'd spent a few hours in his office, getting back up to speed with the latest intel from the 'Cons and catching up on the human news and trends that he routinely monitored. As soon as the mid-morning break rolled around though, Jazz had rocked on down to the Rec Room, pretty much intending to see the day out there – at least until he could persuade Prowler to quit his office and do something more interesting.

He hadn't expected to be stalking out of the Rec Room, metaphorical hackles flaring, less than an hour after he wandered in with a hip new track from one of his favourite groups blaring from his thigh speakers.

He'd put the weirdness he'd picked up from Ratchet and Bluestreak during the last week in Medbay down to the unusually serious injuries both he and Prowl had suffered. Bluestreak had a tendency to freak a little if either of them was hurt, and this time had been a doozy. He knew it was hard on the medic to treat his old friends too, and guessed he couldn't blame Ratchet for trying to put a bit of distance between them. Given their slow recovery, it was almost certainly the medic who dictated the near-total lack of other visitors that left both him and Prowl wondering during their enforced bed-rest. Even Prime had been chased out after a few curiously awkward minutes of small talk.

Jazz had been looking forward to escaping Ratchet's thrall. And looking forward for so, so long now to seeing his friends again and making a start on rebuilding his life. It looked like the rest of the crew didn't share his anticipation.

Their injuries, and whatever freak-out Ratchet or maybe young Blue had scared the Ark with, couldn't account for the dead silence that was his only greeting as he entered the Rec Room, the strange look he got from Mirage as he crossed to the energon dispenser, the uncomfortable shifting of Huffer and Brawn on the sofa by the supersized television screen, or the way Wheeljack wilted – subtly but noticeably – as Jazz approached, cube in hand.

The reaction took some of the bounce out of Jazz's stride, but he didn't let his expression falter. He dropped into the chair beside his friend and tilted it back, music still throbbing pleasantly though his frame.

"Hiya, 'Jack."

"Jazz." Wheeljack had an inbuilt disadvantage when it came to hiding his moods. Jazz couldn't imagine how cruel a creator would have to be to give a mech head-fins that flashed in a colourful display of emotion. Now he blinked at the engineer, startled by the purple-tinted grey that indicated deep discomfort mingled with more than a hint of embarrassment.

Something was wrong here, and it was Jazz's job as the crew's unofficial morale officer, not to mention amateur psychologist while Smokey remained in stasis, to deal with it. The thought perked him up a little, distracting him for a moment from his own problems. He pushed his chair back, throwing his ankles up on the table and cranking his music up a notch.

"Didn't see you around in Medbay?" He was careful to keep the question casual. Wheeljack tensed even so.

"Ah, Ratchet still has me working on analysing the virus we've had around here."

Well, that might explain why Perceptor and Skyfire had also been pretty noticeable in their absence over the last few days in Medbay. And as for Wheeljack – maybe he was still feeling ropey himself? It was a possibility. Jazz gave a sympathetic nod.

"Heard the 'flu thing was pretty nasty. Still, guess the worst of it's over and done with for now, yeah?"

"Ah…" Again that unusual hesitation from Wheeljack. "I… guess so." The engineer rubbed his brow. "Look, Jazz, could you turn the volume down a bit?"

Jazz's visor brightened in surprise, his ankles slipping from the table as he straightened in his chair. He was accustomed to the occasional complaint about his choice of music, and made a point of trying to match his tunes to the moods of everyone else in the room as much as his own. He'd changed tracks since sitting down in fact, sorting though the new releases for one he thought 'Jack might like. The expression of discomfort and outright distaste on Wheeljack's face was a shock. It was as if the last two years – all the effort he'd put into educating his friend about human music – had never happened.

"Sorry, 'Jack. Didn't realise it was botherin' ya so much."

Jazz dialled down his music with a slightly numb feeling, and then killed the speakers entirely, slumping back in his chair. It just wasn't the same at half volume, and he couldn't stand to do that to a sweet track. Wheeljack gave him a grateful nod, vented a sigh of relief and offered a flicker of a smile that seemed massively out of place.

"That's better." The engineer rubbed the back of his neck. He shifted in his chair. "So… are you getting back up to speed okay?"

He'd thought he was. He offered Wheeljack a non-committal shrug. "Sounds like not much happened while Prowler and I were away."

Wheeljack hummed under his breath, sipping his energon. Jazz sat in silence beside him and Wheeljack seemed oblivious to the strangeness of that fact or the way the saboteur's mind was struggling to adjust. No one – well no one other than Prowl – had ever seriously told him to turn his music down outside of the loudest parties. Anyone who knew him knew that rocking along to human tracks was just something he did. That it was just Jazz. Most of the crew, Wheeljack included, had been known to look at him with concern on the rare occasions he _wasn't_ accompanied by a throbbing beat.

"Well, I'd best get on." Wheeljack stood abruptly, almost tripping over his own feet. Jazz moved to steady his friend with all the speed and grace of his Special Ops training. Wheeljack flinched, actually flinched, away from the hand on his back, looking unduly startled to see Jazz go from his casual slouch to standing so quickly.

Jazz let his hand fall away. He kept a relaxed smile on his face to mask his hurt as Wheeljack stuttered something about being needed in the lab and fled the room. The smile faded as he let his eyes sweep the room, only to find himself alone. Or almost so. The mini-bots had abandoned their seat by the television, but a disturbance in the air currents and the slight buzz of an electromagnetic field over his sensory horns told him Mirage had 'left the room' in the public sense only. Pursing his lips, confused and bothered that his friend had no desire to speak to him after all that had happened, Jazz did the other mech the courtesy of not noticing his presence. He stalked to the Rec Room door, trying hard to relax his posture and put a swagger back in his steps despite his confusion.

His footsteps echoed along the corridors, silence gathering around him, and a deepening frown on his face despite his efforts to calm himself.

It was actually something of a relief when the silence was broken – not by music but by the unmistakeable sound of gathered mechs and a confrontation in progress. Jazz quickened his pace, following the rumble of raised voices around a bend in the corridor and onto the forward crew-quarters corridor.

Vorns of experience with this crew made the situation plain in the first nanoklick. Hound and Trailbreaker looked to be there by accident, stumbling into this much like Jazz, and trying to play peacemaker. Bumblebee seemed uncomfortable, probably torn between clan loyalties and his more recently acquired responsibilities as a junior lieutenant. Judging by the aggressive postures of the other three mini-bots – Cliffjumper, Gears and Huffer – neither his efforts nor those of the two larger Autobots were doing much to calm the situation. Cliffjumper's fists were clenched by his side, his body leaning forward as if any second now he'd leap at the gleaming yellow warrior in front of him. Sunstreaker looked dangerous, his body half-turned away from the mini-bots in a show of contempt, but his eyes following their every movement. Jazz's optics narrowed behind their visor when he realised the frontliner's shoulders were somewhat slumped, his posture not exactly screaming enthusiasm for the fight, even if his fierce expression did a good job of convincing the mini-bots otherwise. Behind him, Sideswipe leaned against the wall, making the position look casual as his dimmed optics tracked his brother.

"So," Jazz slouched forward, hands relaxed by his side, head tilted to one side. "Tell me, mechs, is this really goin' to be worth Ratchet handin' ya your afts when ya end up in his Medbay?" His visor flared, startled, when every mech in the corridor jumped at the sound of his voice, turning on the spot where necessary to bring him into sight. He sent a quick command to polarise his visor, keeping its glow constant, and pasted an entirely false grin on his face. "What say we break this up now, before anythin' nasty hasta happen?"

Hound and Trailbreaker hesitated only a moment before sketching a pair of awkward waves and slipping past Jazz down the corridor. The twins' eyes swept over him with identical looks of open assessment, and Jazz felt his own body tense as Sunstreaker's eyes slid to Sideswipe, head tilted in a silent question. The red twin slumped a little further against the wall, but the look he threw Jazz was frankly curious and his almost-shrug was obvious to the officer. Sunstreaker straightened, giving his arms a subtle shake to loosen the cables there. Jazz responded without even thinking about it, rocking back on the balls of his feet, bending his knees slightly and ramping up the input from his sensory horns as his entire body slipped into a state of dangerous relaxation.

"Let's break this up, Sunstreaker." Jazz's voice was still calm but the note of good humour had faded. He couldn't quite believe he was doing this – bracing at battle readiness in the corridors of the Ark itself.

"These mini-bots need teaching a lesson." Sunstreaker's flat assertion was met with an outcry of protests from Cliffjumper and Gears. "If they can't learn to look where they're going…"

"Sunstreaker." Now there couldn't be any question that Jazz was standing in that corridor as anything but an officer. "I said, move along."

Sunstreaker took a bold step forward, his optics gleaming. Behind him, Sideswipe finally pushed away from the wall, venting hard and using one hand to steady himself for a long moment before straightening up. Jazz faced them both, visor steady, faceplates set in a carefully neutral expression.

The mini-bots noticed Sideswipe's movement first, and only then realised Sunstreaker was tensed to fight. They actually backed off a metre or two, their expressions startled and curious as they glanced from the twins to the black and white mech mid-corridor. No one but Bumblebee seemed to have noticed that Jazz, for all his casual posture and loose limbs, was just as ready if not more so. The small yellow 'bot was looking distinctly worried, hesitating as if uncertain whether to intervene.

"You really want t' do this, Sunstreaker?" Jazz asked quietly. With an adjustment so subtle that most mechs would miss it, he made his fighting stance just a little more obvious. He saw Sunstreaker's eyes widen and met the frontliner's growing scowl without flinching or backing down by so much as an inch.

"Sunny," Bumblebee's voice had a strangled note that drew all eyes to him. All but Jazz's. "You really, really _don't_ want to do this. Trust me."

Sunstreaker frowned. His eyes flicked, lightning fast, from Jazz to the younger Special Ops mech and back again. Suddenly looking less certain of himself, he looked harder at Jazz's stance and at the total lack of fear in the officer's steady gaze. Abruptly, fast enough that Jazz dropped into a deeper crouch and stilled his vents, ready for anything, Sunstreaker shook his head and took a step back, his body relaxing out of its aggressive posturing.

With a deep vent, Jazz relaxed too, although not so far as most of the mechs present would believe. He glared at Sunstreaker with undisguised irritation. "Damn it, Sunny! I thought we were well past that kinda slaggin' crap from you. The only reason I'm not haulin' ya down t' the brig is 'cause your bro looks like he's gonna topple over any klick, you're not that much better, and I've got better things t' do than lug both your afts back t' your room."

Sunstreaker cycled his optics and then looked away, not exactly cowed in the face of Jazz's rant, but not exactly challenging either. Jazz shook his head, baffled by the aggression. Sure Sunstreaker was more likely to test his bounds than just about anyone else in the crew, but he usually only tried it on new recruits, or occasionally on fellow crew who needed reminding that 'Sunny' was a force to be reckoned with. Jazz's few orns out of circulation shouldn't be near long enough for the frontliner to gather the nerve to try that on the Ark's third in command, but that was the only explanation an increasingly frustrated Jazz could come up with.

He caught Sideswipe and Sunstreaker's optics, flicking his head along the corridor. "Go to your room and cool off, both of you." They hesitated, and Jazz had had enough. His tone dropped from one of simple irritation to cold fury. "And I'm warnin' ya now, even think of tryin' that crap on Prowl and you're on your own. I'm not even gonna help pick up the pieces."

Sunstreaker's optics brightened. He jerked a reluctant nod, moving to his brother's side and steadying him with a hand on his back-plates. The two mechs were venting hard, their optics flickering slightly, and all at once, Jazz felt bad for the two. He cycled his optics, letting his anger drain away. Ratchet mentioned that the twins had been pretty bad, were the only mechs still off-duty, in fact. Perhaps he should have cut them a little slack and backed down? Even as the thought occurred to him, his instincts screamed that would have been the worst possible thing to do.

Making a mental note to ask Ratchet to check in on them later, he allowed the two to pass him. It took an effort of will not to tense as they did so and, even with his gaze on the lingering mini-bots, his sensor net followed them away.

Bumblebee had made himself scarce – smart bot. Huffer and Gears appeared to be frozen in place, wide-eyed. Cliffjumper, the most likely instigator of this whole business, was glaring after the twins, uncowed and with fists that opened and clenched by his side. A ping to Teletraan 1 for the duty roster, and Jazz vented a sigh.

"Gears, you should have been on the monitors a breem ago. Huffer, you're late for patrol. Head out and 'Jumper will catch up with you. Cliffjumper, walk with me a minute or two?"

He offered it as a suggestion, although it wasn't close to that. Cliffjumper turned to him with a snarl, but then reconsidered, wary optics dimming. Jazz cursed inside to see it. He deliberately turned his back on the mech, sauntering away and not letting his relief show when a more rapid patter of footsteps fell in behind him.

"So, want to tell me what that was all about?"

Cliffjumper remained silent and Jazz glanced at him sidelong through the corner of his visor.

"Sunstreaker can be a bit of an aft, I'm not denyin' it. And he was pretty slaggin' pissy today. But he doesn't go off like that without a push and I'm pretty sure ya knew that damn well when ya pushed him. I don't want t' get all hard core about this 'Jumper, but we've talked about your anger thing. 'Less ya start chillin' an' soon, I can't keep cuttin' ya this much slack."

Cliffjumper was staring at Jazz as if he'd grown an extra head. Jazz vented hard, realising that he wasn't going to make any progress today.

"Just try to chillax next time, mech. Leave Sunny alone and play ya'self some Santana. I know ya like a touch o' the mellow sometimes." He said that last with a smirk, and let a ripple of guitar music spill from his thigh speakers, trying to put his friend back at ease in the hope that his words might actually sink in. If anything, Cliffjumper got more tense still at the mention of his secret musical preference – confided late one night in the Rec Room. Jazz shook his head. "Best catch up with Huffer," he suggested, trying not to take it personally when the mini-bot fled with no more than a jerky nod.

Alone in the empty corridor, Jazz dimmed his optics for a few moments, before rebooting them. Shaking his head again, swearing under his breath, he stalked the corridors of the Ark, thankful not to meet another bot on the way to his destination. He didn't bother waiting for Prowl to admit him; the lock on his mate's office door had long since been programmed to open for him without ceremony. He didn't even stop to wonder just why Prowl was working with his door locked until he'd already slung himself into the chair set aside for him by Prowl's desk and tilted it back, ankles resting on the edge of the desk. Only then did he take time to note the deliberately blank expression on his lover's face and the irritable set of his still-sensitive door-wings.

Prowl looked him over, wings flicking, and concern brightened his optics as silence returned after Jazz's dramatic entrance.

"You're very… quiet."

"For which read: slagging furious."

"That too."

Jazz tilted his head and refocused his visor on Prowl, before dimming it and letting his head thunk back against the seat rest. "And it looks like I'm not the only one havin' a bad day. Tell me yours and I'll tell ya mine."

Prowl looked as if wanted to turn that question around, but Jazz had asked first, and in this mood he wouldn't yield. Venting a concerned sigh, the tactician shook his head.

"Optimus Prime has tried three times today to encourage me to take a break, go get some energon, or otherwise neglect my allotted duty shift."

Jazz onlined his optics, frowning. "Doesn't sound all that unusual, mech."

Prowl's door-wings flared.

"To all appearances, he actually expected me to agree." Prowl paused before going on, voice soft. "Jazz, he pulled Red Alert in on our meeting about duty rosters this morning, and had Trailbreaker cross-checking my tactical analyses until he went off shift."

Jazz heard the hurt in the other mech's voice, and saw it in his quivering wingtips. Prime hadn't second-guessed his deputy, or needed a second opinion on routine matters, since their first few orns together. For Prowl, of all mechs, to face such unexplained doubt on his first day back on duty was a confidence-shattering blow.

"Red Alert has protested, delayed or double-checked every statement I've made today! Ironhide appears to be brimming over with sudden resentment for the loss of an authority he has never before wanted."

Humming understanding and comfort under his breath, Jazz nodded. He drew a long breath in between his vents and held it for a moment before adding his oar in.

"Just found m'self toe to toe with Sunstreaker, scared half the mini-bots outta their frames. Oh, an' found out 'Jack hates me."

Prowl raised a brow-ridge, distracted from his growing agitation as he studied Jazz's exaggerated pout and saw past it to the genuine dismay beyond. Jazz worked long and hard to make the Autobots on the Ark forget just why he was their third in command, and precisely how dangerous he could be. Being forced to show his hand, in the corridors of the Ark itself, was more than just unsettling. The tactician frowned, focussing on the most outlandish of Jazz's complaints.

"I very much doubt that Wheeljack has been hiding a deep-seated animosity all the vorns we've known him."

"He told me to turn my music down!"

"Music doesn't make the mech, Jazz."

"Does if I say it does. Anyway, he couldn't wait t'get away from me, Prowler. Wheeljack didn't have a thing t' say t' me. Not seen him that uncomfortable since last time I dragged him to an oil bar in downtown Iacon. The mini-bots were gettin' pretty jumpy when I got close too, and that was before I had Sunny tryin' me out."

Prowl nodded, his expression thoughtful. Jazz cycled down his optics, wracking his own processor for some explanation, but confident that Prowl's battle computer would find the answer first. Jazz's visor blazed back into vibrant life, his body tensing for action, when his mate suddenly jerked upright on his chair. The tactician's expression was a picture of shocked and horrified realisation.

"Jazz, you said Sunstreaker was testing you – as if you were new to the crew? And Wheeljack was uncomfortable, he didn't know what to say?"

"Yeah. I mean, guess small talk 'bout the last few weeks ain't gonna be easy, but still…"

Prowl shook his head, sharply, as if trying to dislodge a thought.

"Prowler?"

"Prowl?" The buzz of Prowl's door intercom, distorting Optimus's voice with a crackle of interference was far from welcome at that moment. Jazz watched his lover's expression shut down, wings hitching to a respectful half-mast on his back. Prowl reached out for the switch that would admit his Prime, shooting Jazz a look so familiar it needed no words: follow my lead.

"Prowl." Optimus paused in the threshold as the door slid open. "Have you seen…?" He stopped, blinking. "Ah, Jazz. I was looking for you."

Jazz raised a curious brow-ridge, reaching up to tap his visor in an idle salute.

"Shoulda known where you'd find me, Prime."

Optimus's optics slid away from meeting his gaze. Their commander stared into nowhere for a moment, clearly uncomfortable.

"Of course. Ah… Jazz, Red Alert tells me you were involved in some sort of confrontation earlier? Has someone on the crew been…?"

"Jus' Sunny being Sunny." As annoyed and unsettled as Jazz was by the confrontation, it wasn't worth landing the warrior in deep water for. "A few of the mechs still grouchin' off the end of that flu-bug." Jazz's vocalisor stuttered. His visor flared with realisation and his quick look at Prowl was met with a sad nod.

Optimus, apparently fixated with a spot on the floor and another on the wall, shifting his gaze between them as he avoided his officers' optics, didn't appear to notice.

"I see… I'd like to be informed of any further… incidents."

Jazz stood, the fluid movement startling Prime and forcing his optics up to meet Jazz's through his visor.

"Prime, keepin' order in the crew is my _job_." He stressed the words, his assertion all the more vehement for his new-found suspicion. "And tellin' tales ain't. Bad enough that I'm an officer. Ya think any of the crew is goin' t' talk to me, if any conversation worth havin' has gotta be reported back to you?"

This time Optimus had the grace to look embarrassed. Jazz shook his head, aware of Prowl pushing back his chair and standing beside him.

"Disciplinary issues amongst the crew have never been an issue for the Prime," the tactician observed, voice perfectly neutral. "Unless you intend to revise the assessment scales for minor infractions?"

Scales that Prowl had written and Jazz had a habit of re-interpreting… creatively. Prime looked blank at the mention. He raised a hand to his facemask in a nervous gesture he'd picked up from Sparkplug.

"I just thought, given everything that's happened…"

Prowl looked expectant; his vented sigh when Prime stuttered into silence was so faint that even Jazz barely heard it. There was a long, awkward pause before Prowl decided to rescue his Prime… or trap him.

"I believe that I might follow your advice, Optimus, and end this duty shift early. Jazz and I would be pleased if you'd join us in the Rec Room for energon."

There was no graceful way for Prime to turn down the invitation. As uncomfortable as he looked, walking into the large room with the pair of black and white mechs at either shoulder, he showed no surprise at Prowl's decision. The lull in conversation that followed their entry should, by rights, have been one of surprise at seeing Prowl out of his office before the end of the shift. Instead, it was something quite different. Just about every mech in the room – about half of the early morning shift – stole a covert glance at both Jazz and Prowl. The unusual presence of their Prime aroused far less interest.

Jazz was already on edge, tense and jumpy at the wrongness of it all, when Prowl began, calmly and in great detail, to discuss the popular music topping the human charts, and the personal lives of the celebrities behind it. Jazz took a few minutes to marvel in and appreciate his mate's attention to his interests before meeting Prowl's eyes. Stepping in without giving their Prime a chance to escape, he diverted the topic to ask Optimus if he'd had time to catch the latest chess tournament and expound for a while on human symbolic logic. Prime looked lost, trying to join in with the occasional rumbling comment, but unfamiliar with the topics rather than confused by which of his two officers had raised them.

They were still playing conversational ping-pong several breems later when Bluestreak walked through the Rec Room door and stopped, staring at them, door-wings twitching in astonishment.

"Prowl! What are you doing here so early? I mean, I know there's no reason you shouldn't be here if you want to be, but I was sort of surprised to see you on your first day and all. I thought you'd be busy for hours and hours yet. And why are you and Jazz talking like that? Are you guys okay? I hope nothing's wrong, 'cause its kind of weird, if you know what I mean, and I didn't even know you knew all that about…"

"Bluestreak." Prowl cut through his ramble, voice quiet but firm. "Thank you, but Jazz and I are perfectly well."

"Ah. Right." Bluestreak was still giving them a strange look "Well, I guess… I guess I ought to go get some energon."

"Sounds like an idea, Blue," Jazz agreed easily, not taking his eyes off Optimus Prime. Their leader slumped in his chair, his expression surprised, his posture defeated.

The three of them were silent for several second as Bluestreak backed off. It wasn't until the young gunner turned away that Prowl allowed his door-wings to droop low against his back.

"The virus." It wasn't a question. Prime nodded a confirmation anyway.

"Is Blue the only one?" Jazz asked, feeling sick to the base of his tanks. "The only one t' remember us?"

Optimus gazed at them with a painfully sincere pity, and not an ounce of recognition. "Ratchet is working as hard as he can on finding a solution, but our memories...? Changes are difficult… dangerous." He vented a sigh. "Ratchet tells me it could take… a while."

"A while as in days?" Jazz demanded, voice sharp. "Months? Years?"

Prime shifted in his seat, unable to answer the question. "Ratchet didn't want you to feel you lacked support. I… I didn't want you to feel in any way unwelcome."

"Even though both those things are, on some level at least, true?" Prowl asked, his voice and faceplates devoid of expression.

Prime could only give them a helpless look. At least he did them the courtesy of not trying to deny it.

* * *

><p>"We'll find a way through this."<p>

Lying on his back, staring at the glow his visor cast on the ceiling of their darkened quarters, Jazz wondered who Prowl was trying to convince. He dimmed his visor, concentrating on the soft whir of his mate's systems.

"Don't go tellin' me this'll be okay, Prowler. Ya can't tell me you'd be happy droppin' a pair of senior officers into an established unit at the best'a times."

Prowl sighed, his arm slipping around Jazz, pulling the stiff form against his side. "I wouldn't be happy doing it to a unit that had been together a single vorn, let alone so long a time, and in such intense circumstance, as this one."

The admission was strangely comforting. At least Jazz wasn't alone in facing the problem.

"As far as the mechs aboard the Ark are concerned, they have been in a stable, even prosperous position for almost two years, with a close-knit team and no memory of our involvement. They can see no reason why the Ark would not continue to function without us."

"I'd like t' see them try gettin' along without ya there to lay down th' duty rosters."

"They have managed to do so for much of the last month."

Jazz snorted, amused to be discussing inanities rather than the bigger picture. "Ya left them schedules for the firs' three weeks, and after two of them everyone got ill anyway. The way Blue tells it, half th' shifts didn't get covered, anyone well enough double-shifted off their own back-plates and neither Red nor Ratchet recharged for an orn."

Prowl chuckled, the sound vibrating through his body and into Jazz's. The saboteur took a moment to revel in the sensation and then sighed, reactivating his optics, before returning to their problem with a tentative whisper.

"Ratch will find a way t' reverse the virus anyway, right? Sooner or later?"

"Indeed." Prowl's answer was about as confident as Jazz's initial question.

Ratchet scowl had carried a mixture of guilt and frustration when they sought him out with the questions he'd avoided for more than a week. Neither mech allowed that to stop them getting answers. They just weren't the ones either Jazz or Prowl had hoped for.

Turning the virus back on the Decepticons had involved straightforward firewall coding – basic, and well understood. Ratchet hadn't risked touching the memory algorithms that piggybacked it. Despite his hard work since Bluestreak's revelations, and the intense research effort from the Ark's science team, the medic was reluctant to do so now.

Jazz couldn't blame him. He vented a sigh, one hand reaching out to trail a finger down Prowl's nearest doorwing. Starscream might be a slagger, but he was a competent scientist. Even with as much time as he needed to perfect his virus, the Seeker had limited it to a very specific criterion – any mention of Prowl and Jazz. Already that had skirted within a short step of catastrophe. Deleting any more from a processor could have left enough inconsistencies in the infected mech's core programming to cause shutdowns, insanity, total personality breakdowns. Memory wasn't a distinct and isolated system. It was integral to every system, written in their sparks and in their frames, part of how their processors interacted with the world. The knock-on effects of losing even so little were disconcerting and unsettling for half the Autobots aboard. Worse than that, cross-talk between personal and system memory had most likely been to blame for at least some of the physical symptoms the Ark crew had experienced.

Modifying Starscream's code without understanding it risked worsening the effect, creating gaps in a memory cortex large enough to destabilise the whole system, spawning still more corrupt and mutated viruses along the way. No wonder Ratchet was nervous. Dealing with a mech's processor was a precision task at the best of times. This was far from that.

"Maybe… maybe he shouldn't try." Jazz felt Prowl stiffen beside him, surprised and shocked at his suggestion. "Primus, Prowler, what if Ratch gets it wrong? What if…" Jazz's voice trailed off in a shudder, and Prowl leaned down, nuzzling his sensory horns.

"I trust Ratchet. I trust Wheeljack." Prowl's soft voice carried total conviction. "I trust them to do their best for us. And I trust them not to risk the crew doing it."

"Yeah." As always, Prowl was the voice of reason, stating a truth than Jazz couldn't argue with. The saboteur leaned into his mate's touch, drawing as much comfort from Prowl's quiet words as from the contact.

Doubtless, given enough time, Ratchet would find a cure – nerve-wracking as the process might be, neither mech questioned that. No, the question was whether it would come tomorrow, an orn from now, or vorns later. Even Ratch wasn't sure the solution would be found in time to be anything but an academic feat.

"It could be worse," Prowl tried after a few moments of silence between them. "Even if they don't know us, we have intimate knowledge of every mech aboard. That should allow us to open a dialogue…"

Any other time and Jazz would have teased his lover for his technically correct but ambiguous language. He half-suspected Prowl of giving him the opening deliberately. Right now he couldn't summon so much as a smile.

"Prowler… how would ya feel if a stranger walked up to ya – a mech you've never seen b'fore in your life – and started spoutin' _intimate knowledge_ 'bout you?" He let loose a mirthless laugh. "No wonder the crew're lookin' at us like we're one o' Wheeljack's booms-in-waitin'. They don't know what we know, and they don't know – they can't really know – if they c'n trust us. There's not a mech aboard who doesn't have secrets they wanta keep. I've prob'ly already traumatised Cliffjumper for life by knowin' about his secret Santana fetish."

There was a moment of silence before Prowl spoke. "Really… Santana?"

This time Jazz's attempt to laugh broke off into a sob. He felt Prowl's arm tighten around him and shifted to lay his head on his mate's chest-plate. "They were our friends, Prowl! More than that – family! I'd have trusted any mech on this crew with my life. More than that, I'd've trusted them with yours!"

"They're still the mechs they always were."

Jazz shook his head, not in denial but in despair. "The mechs they always were: soldiers, survivors, fiercely loyal, fiercely defensive o' their own. But kinda more so. These last two years here on Earth – they've changed all o' us, Prowl. They made this crew into somethin' special, and we were a part o' that. And now we're not." He shuddered, curling into his mate's side. "They'll fight wi' us, sure, if they hafta, but it'll take vorns 'til they're ready t' let us guard their backs. And, ya know what scares me, Prowl? It's knowin' that in the heat'a battle, with a spark-beat t' make the decision and no time for hesitatin', you'd give ya life for any one of them. And there's not a mech in the lotta them who can say the same for you."


	9. Smokescreen: Brave New World

**Smokescreen – New World**

_Autobot Smokescreen: Reboot in progress... 70% complete... 80%... 90%...  
><em>  
>The numbers scrolled past Smokescreen's heads-up display, accompanied by a vague sense of bemusement as the Autobot's sluggish processor gradually climbed out of stasis.<p>

_Processor reboot complete. _

_Updating alt-mode configuration options. _

_Uploading specifications, alt mode class designation: Datson._

_Initiating motor controls... 20%...30%..._

The information messages were coming faster now. Smokescreen leaned back in the stasis rack, content to leave his still-booting motor controls alone as the fog faded slowly from his mind. He had more than enough to worry about without testing stiff limbs and forcing unwilling joints. It was all his long-dormant processors could do to keep up with the data stream from Teletraan I.

_Operational Status Update:_

Primary Mission - goal: search for new energon resources  
>Primary Mission - status: suspended<br>Primary Mission - total duration: 5.24 orns  
>Primary Mission - reason for suspension: Decepticon attackcrash landing

Current location of Ark: Planetary surface/crash site - designation: Earth  
>Current crew complement: 32 active, 46 stasis-locked<p>

Time elapsed since suspension of Primary Mission: 4.8 x 10^4 vorn

Smokescreen blinked, only realising as he did so that his optics had come online. He hadn't hesitated to sign up for the Ark's auxiliary crew, even knowing that he'd spend most of the journey in stasis rather than straining the Autobots' already inadequate energon reserves. There'd been no question that his unique blend of skills would be needed sooner or later. He'd expected to spend a few decaorns in medical stasis, maybe half a vorn at the outside. But... almost fifty kilovorn? The mere thought was enough to send him reeling, distracting him to the point where he scarcely managed to process the endless stream of Earth-native language, cultural and scientific referents that Teletraan I provided. He translated the timespan to local units on a whim, wondering if it would make any more sense that way. Fifty thousand vorn - more than four million orbits of this planet around its primary. Nope, the number was still beyond belief.

_Time elapsed since reanimation of Primary Crew: 1.89 Earth years_

Secondary Mission - goal: counter Decepticon aggression/protect Earth natives  
>Secondary Mission - allies: designation 'humans' (Earth natives, alliance status: tentative)<br>Secondary Mission - status: ongoing

That seemed to be the gist of things, and it was certainly more than enough to be going on with. Smokescreen blinked his way past the HUD, setting a flag for any information tagged as 'critical' and archiving the rest for perusal later. For the moment he was far more interested in the red and blue blur above him, and in persuading his uncooperative optics to focus on it.

"Prime!" His greeting was accompanied by a whir and a click, dropping half an octave in tone as his vocalisor recalibrated. He grinned, a little embarrassed to have his leader witness his reboot, but confident enough in Prime's presence to laugh at himself rather than attempt a futile apology. "Optimus, it's good to see you."

"Smokescreen." Prime's voice was a deep rumble that Smokescreen felt vibrate through his frame. It was a voice he'd followed across Cybertron, into battle and finally into the unforgiving depths of space. And right now it was warm and rich with understanding. "It is most welcome to have you active once again."

A slight movement, a shift in the shadows beyond Prime, resolved itself into a flash of black and white - no, into two slender frames. Standing a little to one side, out of Smokescreen's immediate line of sight, Jazz had just taken half a step towards Prowl, his shoulder brushing the tactician's left door-wing, their complementary colour schemes almost letting them fade into the dimly lit background. Only their optics made them stand out, Prowl's deep blue already fixed on Smokescreen, Jazz's visor jerking up in the same direction as he spoke, neither of them looking towards Optimus Prime.

"Prowl!" Smokescreen's post-stasis warmth had faded a little as he wondered what to say to Optimus - whether to ask after his leader's health, thank him for being there or simply commiserate. Four million years, Decepticon assaults and only seventy-eight crew accounted for? If those were the highlights, neither Smokescreen's tactical processor nor the trained psychologist in him looked forward to the details. Now though, the diversionary tactician felt his cheek-plates pull up into a smile of genuine delight for his immediate commander and fellow Praxian, one that he was more than happy to share with an old friend and fellow card-player. "Jazz! How are you guys?"

Taking an awkward step forward, out of the stasis rack, Smokescreen shrugged his newly reconfigured sensory panels and tilted his head, taking in the body language of the three mechs in front of him. Prime backed off a little, giving Smokescreen room, but increasing the gap to his second and third, putting the newly-roused mech between himself and his two lieutenants. Prowl inclined his own head in greeting and edged forward, the movement both welcoming and oddly hesitant. Jazz moved with him, giving Smokescreen a lopsided grin, but close by his mate's side at all times.

Smokescreen gave a rueful shake of his head, working to hide his growing frown.

"So, are you two bonded yet, or still keeping everyone guessing?" It was a stab in the dark - a boldness Smokescreen only risked because he could blame post-stasis confusion for the indiscretion and because Jazz at least was aware of the high-stakes book Smokescreen kept on the answer. A recent bond might explain Jazz and Prowl's unusual closeness, and maybe even Prime's apparent distance and discomfort around the two of them. He wasn't expecting Prime to give the three of them a sad smile, backing up another step, the shudder of - what was that emotion? - that ran through the two black-and-white mechs, or the way they drew almost imperceptibly closer together.

Jazz managed a very-nearly-genuine snort of laughter. "Guess," he deadpanned.

Prime wasn't nearly as good at making his chuckle sound natural. "I'll leave you three to get reacquainted. Smokescreen, you should take this evening to find your feet and catch up with your crewmates. Report to Prowl and Ratchet for briefing in the morning."

Smokescreen blinked at his leader's retreating back-plates, and carefully filed the brusque instructions with a dozen other small clues, still working to build the full picture. He already had a guess at where he might find more pieces. He turned back to Jazz and Prowl, intrigued and a little concerned to catch a frustrated, almost angry, expression on Prowl's faceplates before his superior rebuilt his stoic mask. Smokescreen summoned up a smile, flicking his stiff door-wings again and giving a full-body shudder to loosen some of the seized servos.

"Well, apparently it's been getting on for a megavorn since I re-energized, and I have to say, I'm feeling every orn of it. Rec Room?"

Prowl hesitated before nodding, not looking terribly keen at the prospect. More surprisingly, Jazz shrugged, as if he too held no particular enthusiasm for their destination.

"Rec Room," he agreed, leading the way to the door.

* * *

><p>Smokescreen leaned back in his chair, angling himself to ease the pressure on his door-wings and humming under his breath. An evening in the Ark's common room had been… informative, probably more so than any of the mechs there appreciated.<p>

The room had actually been empty when they'd arrived, midway through the afternoon shift. Jazz and Prowl had claimed a wall-table for their own, both saboteur and tactician apparently content to spend their time talking about Cybertron memories and bringing Smokescreen up to speed on some of the more complex aspects of Earth culture. They steered clear of the current military situation and recent events, Prime's instructions to relax in mind. There'd be time to discuss tactics tomorrow. For now Smokescreen was just glad to see his two friends relaxing somewhat. And more than a little worried to notice their renewed tension as the room filled up.

At first he'd missed it, distracted by the familiar mechs and the strangeness of his own situation. Picking up old friendships after two years, four million and no time at all from the point of view of his comrades, the Universe as a whole and Smokescreen himself required a bit of give and take, adjusting to shifts in the crew dynamics and providing context for anecdotes. Smokescreen's easy charm and well-honed people skills smoothed the few awkward moments, and it was only breems before he was joking and laughing with the rest.

It wasn't until he'd looked around after a lengthy chat with Hound and Trailbreaker that he realised Prowl and Jazz had slipped out of the room. And it was only then that he registered what he'd seen all along. While Smokescreen's presence had been met with glad cries and as warm a welcome as he could ask for, not a single voice had called out a greeting to their second and third in command – not too far out of the ordinary for Prowl perhaps, but thoroughly baffling where Jazz was concerned. The few glances thrown in their direction seemed to hold more confusion and wariness than warmth. Ironhide had spared the two of them a nod when he came over to exchange a few words with Smokescreen. Mirage paused by their table long enough to drop an awkward comment about the weather of all things. Everyone else… Smokescreen had been called over to group after group, and hadn't hesitated to go, but whenever he'd drifted back to that small table by the wall, he'd done so strictly alone.

The volume of chatter notched up a step with the two officers gone, an almost unnoticed tension ebbing from the crew. As much as Smokescreen wanted to attribute that to Prowl's somewhat forbidding reputation, that was a reaction he'd expect from raw recruits, not from a crew that had lived with the mech long enough to see past his stuffy mask. And there was just no explanation at all for the sudden lull that accompanied Jazz's solo return a decabreem or so later.

The mech's hesitation in the doorway would pass unnoticed by anyone who didn't know him well. Jazz's dimly-lit visor swept the room, his shoulders rising and falling slightly as his vents cycled. The expression on Jazz's face was carefully pleasant, only a certain set to his jaw and the rigidity in his frame betraying an anger Smokescreen was starting to recognise, but still struggling to understand.

The saboteur took his time crossing the room to the energon dispenser, lingering there and glancing around again as if wondering which of the many groups to join. Smokescreen raised a hand, the gesture faltering as he realised the mini-bots around him were quite deliberately _not looking_ at their third in command. Jazz threw a sickly smile in Smokescreen's direction, a wave of one hand dismissing the invitation with a mixture of thanks and understanding. Mirage and Bumblebee shifted in their seats, glancing at the empty places at their table and then exchanging tentative looks, their silent debate rendered irrelevant when Jazz glanced up toward the door and turned back to prepare a second energon cube.

Prowl's hesitation before entering the Rec Room was more obvious. He paused for a long moment before stalking in, door-wings defiantly high, only to reach that same, isolated side table at the same moment as his partner. The contact – servo to door-wing, optics to visor – between them was brief enough even Smokescreen almost missed it. The tension that had Prowl's door-wings quivering where they drooped behind him and Jazz shifting restlessly in his seat, visor sweeping the room, seemed to go entirely unnoticed as the buzz of conversation redoubled.

A large part of Smokescreen, the part that ached with concern for his friends, was just about ready to quit this game and ask what the Pit was going on. The rest, tactician and psychologist alike, kept insisting that the more unbiased evidence he gathered, the more his judgement remained uninfluenced by others, the better. Leaning back in his chair, letting Gears ramble on in some long and convoluted rant about Earth weather, Smokescreen tilted his door-wings forward and turned to watch with interest as Bluestreak entered, damp air steaming from off his patrol-warmed engine. The younger Praxian didn't notice his reanimated compatriot sitting near the video screen. Blue's optics scanned his crewmates, doorwings flaring in what Smokey was intrigued to recognise as frustrated anger. It faded as the gunner caught sight of the officers, and Smokescreen couldn't help venting a sigh of relief to note that while Prowl's young protégé was clearly worried, upset even, he didn't share anything like the crew's general ambivalence towards them.

The sudden tension that streamed off Jazz's body as Bluestreak came up fast, circling the densest knot of tables to approach from behind him, was almost painful to watch. Only Prowl's hand, reaching across the table to take Jazz's arm, kept the Special Ops mech in his seat.

"Oh, _Primus_." Smokescreen's vents stalled mid cycle. Even a lifetime of training couldn't keep the soft exclamation of dismay off his tongue.

In a flash, Jazz's unaccustomed restlessness reshaped itself in Smokescreen's processor. Jazz wasn't just uncomfortable, or burning up an excess of energy. His constant shifting was a direct response to the ebb and flow of mechs in the rest of the Rec Room, his movements keeping his surroundings under constant surveillance, his body poised to meet any assault, and his path to the Rec Room door firmly visualised.

Consciously or otherwise, Jazz's well-tuned and deadly instincts were registering the situation here not just as awkward or hurtful, but potentially hostile. Despite his stoic mask, the constant twitching of Prowl's sensory panels told that same story for anyone who could read it.

In the heart of the only Autobot base on Earth, surrounded by mechs they'd worked with and come to call friends through hundreds of kilovorns of lethal battles, Optimus Prime's second and third in command were uncertain of their own safety and each others'.

"Smokey?" Windcharger leaned forward a little, peering past Gears and interrupting his string of grumpy complaints.

Smokescreen stood, the servos in his legs whining just a little as they reminded him how long it had been since his last oil bath. "Later, guys, okay? I want to catch up with young Blue for a bit."

He didn't wait for an answer, striding across the room to Prowl and Jazz's table, careful to approach along Jazz's line of sight. A twitch of his door-wings, an old Praxian greeting, drew an automatic response from both Prowl and Bluestreak, and a brief, amused smile from Jazz. It was a start. Smokescreen grinned through Bluestreak's rambled greeting, reaching out to snag an extra chair and pull it up. Bluestreak shuffled to one side, making space, and Smokescreen positioned himself carefully, his erect door-wings and Blue's shielding their monochrome friends from most of the room.

Conversations with Blue were usually pretty easy. Even now, the loquacious young mech filled the silence neatly, rambling his way through a dozen Earth anecdotes and quizzing Smokescreen about the experience of stasis in laborious detail. It took time, but eventually Prowl, and finally Jazz too, relaxed enough to join the exchange, throwing in the occasional comment or wry observation. It was perhaps a couple of decabreem – a little under three Earth hours – before Smokescreen took a chance on pulling a pack of gaming cards from his subspace, raising his voice.

"Hey, Bee? Raj? How about joining us for a few hands?"

He reckoned it was a fifty-fifty bet that the two Special Ops mechs would wave off the invitation. He'd give two to one on that the officers would break up the party themselves, calling it a night rather than facing their curiously hesitant former friends. It was a long, long moment before Mirage and Bumblebee stood, pulling their chairs out to bring with them. It was still longer before Jazz relaxed his clenched fists, and Prowl's door-wings eased down from high alert. Smokescreen could only hope his relief was a little less obvious than Bluestreak's as he shuffled the cards and pulled his best poker-face into place.

"Alright, gentlemechs. Let's get down to business."

* * *

><p>The Ark's corridors were quiet, dimmed to respect the nocturnal phase of this world's rotational period. Even so, the light spilling from Medbay came as small surprise.<p>

Most of the Ark's science team had been conspicuous by their absence since Smokescreen onlined. Ratchet, visibly tired, had stopped by the Rec Room precisely once during the evening, filling a couple of cubes on apparent autopilot. He'd paused only long enough to run a cursory scan over Smokescreen and throw Jazz and Prowl a puzzled, frustrated glance, before heading out again, a cube in each hand. Now, deep in the night, the medic was hunched in front of a computer terminal, cursing quietly as he studied streams of what looked like viral code. By his elbow, an untouched energon cube bore mute testimony to the intensity of his concentration. The second lay, empty, beside Wheeljack, consumed before the engineer slipped into recharge with his helm resting on folded arms.

For a few moments, Smokescreen paused on the threshold of Ratchet's domain to weigh up his options. He might answer to Prowl on a daily basis, exercising his training in processor-analysis to confuse and mislead the Decepticons, but those same skills put him firmly on Ratchet's staff when he needed to be. Right now he was unquestionably needed. He looked at his superior and considered all he'd seen. As much as he wanted to just tell the medic to get some rest, he knew from long experience that nothing would shift Ratch when he was chasing a problem this bad.

Besides, Smokescreen's body was still buzzing with post-stasis restlessness. Even without the whole situation in the Rec Room, he wouldn't have been able to sleep. As it was… well, he had been ordered to report for briefing 'in the morning', and his chronometer informed him it was well past local midnight. Close enough.

"Hey, Doc."

"Smokescreen." Ratchet blinked blearily up at him, then blinked again, actually registering the mech. With a brusque gesture, Smokescreen was waved to a medical berth, scans running almost before he climbed up. "Any after-effects of stasis? Sensor defects? Error reports?"

"Nope." Smokescreen shook his head, tolerating the examination before letting the smile slip from his face, and the frown he'd hidden through long hours in the Rec Room show. Ratchet saw it and stepped back from his monitors. The medic was too tired to put energy into witty banter. He vented hard and then raised an eyebrow, folding his arms and just waiting.

Smokescreen echoed his sigh, lying back on the med-berth and folding his arms behind his head.

"So…" he started matter-of-factly, "Prowl and Jazz are well on their way to total meltdown, Prime's got less confidence in them than I've ever seen from him, Blue's going to wear out his vocalisor, not to mention his nerves, and the rest of the crew are walking on eggshells and looking at our second and third in command like they're something the turbo-puppy dragged in off the street. Or maybe like they expect them to snap… 'go postal' as these humans put it." He shuddered, unsettled by how much frustration and anger he'd seen underlying his friends' pain. "They might have a point. How am I doing so far, Doc?"

Ratchet stared at him, optics bright and unreadable. "Jazz and Prowl are that bad?"

The vague concern was that of any medic for a patient, Ratchet's enquiry lacking the intensity and emotion that Smokescreen would expect from him for these patients in particular. It was the faint note of surprise, though, that had Smokescreen pushing up on his elbows. His optics dilated as they focussed, taking in Ratchet's pensive and slightly guilty expression.

"You've known that pair longer than I've been sparked and you have to ask _me_? Okay, Ratch, that's enough. What the slagging _Pit_ is going on?"

Ratchet told him.

* * *

><p>"Enter."<p>

Prowl's response to his office door chime was even in tone, to all appearances perfectly calm and controlled. His expression matched the voice. Even his door-wings were held in a neutral poise, politely assertive without being aggressive.

"Smokescreen."

"Heya, Smokey!"

Jazz, slouched in the chair beside his mate's desk, looking casual. He put down the datapad he'd been reading and sketched a vague wave, head nodding along to the music that drifted softly from his thigh speakers.

Stepping through the door, his own door-wings held wide and friendly, Smokescreen tried not to look like he was evaluating them. Based on what he knew about these two, he was pretty sure he failed. They were almost certainly learning a lot more from him than he was from them. Last night they'd been demoralised, frustrated and not particularly interested in hiding it. Today they were being a good deal more assertive.

Contrary as it might seem, Smokescreen was glad the pair of them were so slagging much harder to read this morning. Even if it was just a reaction to his presence, to the threat of being analysed, it suggested they were at least making an effort to find themselves somewhere amidst the chaos. After all Ratchet had told him about what they'd been through, he'd half expected to walk in on a mental implosion, not a quiet, casual session of office work.

Of course, after their quarters this was probably the place on the Ark they felt most secure. It was telling that Jazz was working in here, not in his own, perfectly functional office a mere two doors away, and that neither officer was assigned a shift on the command deck for the foreseeable future. Unless the pair of them actually decided to open up a little though, that might be all Smokescreen would get told today.

Fortunately, he had another pretext for being here. He waved a hand in something that might just be interpreted as a salute.

"Autobot Diversionary Tactician Smokescreen, reporting for briefing as ordered."

Jazz raised a cynical brow-ridge, Prowl merely nodded.

"I take it Ratchet has already briefed you on the events of the last few orns?" The senior tactician didn't give Smokescreen a chance to answer, or to shift the conversation towards more personal areas, moving on as if the question was purely rhetorical. "Very well then, to place that information in the larger context…"

Three hours later, he spared a thought for regret that he hadn't just bit the bullet and asked Jazz and Prowl how they were feeling. Prowl's briefing regarding their human allies, the strengths and weaknesses of the Autobots and the number, identities and skills of the Decepticons on Earth was nothing if not exhaustive. Jazz chipped in from time to time, adding emphasis to some of the more emotive issues that Prowl noted but didn't expand upon beyond their tactical impact. Most of the briefing was in general terms, giving Smokescreen a tactical overview of the situation 'before recent events'.

It wasn't until well past noon that Prowl shifted to more sensitive areas.

"The Decepticons are currently experiencing the same viral infection that reduced the Ark's efficiency by more than seventy-nine percent during an initial four day period and continues to have a twelve percent impact on operations and crew alertness some four weeks later. However, while the Autobots have been content to avoid confrontation during that period unless forced, I'd have to project that within the next seven to ten days, as the infection eases, physical discomfort is more likely to translate to aggression amongst Decepticons – particularly amongst the Seekers who were least severely affected. Megatron is likely to take advantage of that to act upon his own anger and seek to draw the Autobots into confrontation. By now he will inevitably have been informed of the circumstances surrounding the capture and rescue of Jazz and I, and will rightly consider this a violation of his processor and an insult against his power. It is not in his nature to leave such unavenged."

Smokescreen nodded, huffing a breath of air out through his vents. It didn't take a genius – or a psychologist – to realise that Megatron had to be furious beyond measure, and an angry Megatron was a terrifying one.

Prowl's door-wings twitched, vibrating slightly as a subtle tension crept over him.

"I calculate an eight percent probability that Starscream has been permanently deactivated – either from Jazz's efforts, or from Megatron's punishment in the wake of our escape. However, there is a better than forty percent chance that Starscream's vocal criticism of Megatron and rebellious behaviour will show a notable increase over the next few months, and that the resulting disciplinary issues and discord between the Seeker and non-Seeker populations will impact negatively on Decepticon efficiency as regards both energy raids and long term projects."

The senior tactician's voice remained level, but his body language was anything but neutral now. Smokescreen blinked at his superior, trying to put that last point in the context of the background Jazz and Prowl had provided and failing. It looked like he wasn't the only one. Jazz had gone from slouching in his chair to sitting upright, a slight frown creasing his brow above the visor as he studied his mate.

"Why would Starscream turn rebellious all of a sudden?" Smokescreen asked blankly.

"Starscream has always been rebellious. I am merely predicting an escalation in his established behaviour."

"Question still stands, Prowler." It was the first time in a while that Jazz had spoken. He leaned forward in his chair, expression intent. "Why?"

The twitching of Prowl's wings had gone from a subtle tremor to an outright flinch. He didn't meet Jazz's visor, looking down at his notes. "It became clear to me during our captivity that Starscream is still significantly conflicted regarding his role in the early stages of the war, and that he was in considerable discomfort at being forced to face that conflict after a lengthy period of denial. The experience is likely to have a lingering effect on his thought processes."

Jazz tilted his head one side, one hand twitching in Prowl's direction before he remembered their company and suppressed the reaction. Smokescreen wasn't so good at hiding his discomfort. According to Ratchet, Starscream had effectively shredded Prowl's door-wings, coming within moments of killing him outright. He wasn't sure he even wanted to know what lay behind such spark-deep hatred, or the dull blankness that reached all the way to Prowl's optics when he thought about it.

As troubling as that was, Smokescreen was well accustomed to his immediate superior being something of a mystery to him. One thing here bothered him far more.

"You two haven't talked about what happened?" Smokescreen leaned forward and frowned at them both. "Not even to each other?"

Jazz darted a glance in his direction that was at the same time annoyed and resigned. He shrugged.

"We're talkin'. There's just a lot t'talk about. Pretty sure this hasn't come up."

Prowl's expression, if anything, became colder. The look he gave his mate was far from encouraging.

"And there's no need for it to do so now. Smokescreen, I appreciate that your psychology training is often an asset when it comes to planning diversions, but I expect you to leave personal matters until you're off-duty… unless ordered otherwise."

That last was a concession, an acknowledgement that his authority over Smokescreen wasn't absolute and that both Prime and Ratchet were capable of giving Smokescreen other orders. And most likely already had.

"I believe that covers the majority of recent developments. Now are you clear on the tactical situation? You'll need to summarise it for Prime, of course…"

This time is was Smokescreen who reacted with overt surprise, his door-wings flicking out and downwards. "Wait… you've not told Prime all this?"

"Most of it has been in my briefings, and Jazz's. However, I suspect that Prime will seek confirmation once you've had time to review the situation, and there is no doubt the information will have more impact coming from an individual he knows and trusts."

The statement was far too matter-of-fact.

Smokescreen shifted in his seat, door-wings twitching. "Prowl…"

"We're not blind, Smokey," Jazz cut him off bluntly, slumping back in his chair and not even trying to hide his frustration.

"I am well aware that Prime does not precisely _dis-_trust my recommendations, Smokescreen." Prowl's voice was softer, but the echo of his mate's irritation was clear. "However, his sudden decision to reactivate the crew's auxiliary tactician to 'help me out' is not the strongest endorsement I have ever received."

The lingering resentment and anger he was picking up from both officers was unsurprising, but it cut deep to see even a part of it directed towards the Autobots and their Prime rather than the Decepticons to blame for this whole mess. Smokescreen sighed, not even trying to pretend the situation was a good one.

"I take it you weren't consulted?"

Jazz snorted. "Mech, we didn't even know where we were going yesterday until Optimus led us into the stasis bay to rouse you."

Prowl rubbed tiredly at the base of his scarlet chevron. "Smokescreen, it's pointless to pretend that we do not understand that you have two roles here. Jazz and I are grateful for your support. Last night, in the Rec Room, was… pleasant. The crew will welcome your presence, and I'm sure Bluestreak also appreciates your company. The strain of being our liaison to the Autobots aboard has noticeably affected him. We are only sorry to be the cause of such tension aboard the Ark. Anything you can do to minimise the effect of this awkwardness on the crew's efficiency will be welcome and I will do all I can to facilitate any suggestions you might have to offer. However, do not assume that I will tolerate laxness in your tactical duties, nor that either of us intends to shirk our own roles – insofar as they remain practicable. We are well aware of our duty to the Autobots on this crew. We have not forgotten."

The tactician held Smokescreen's surprised gaze for a long second. Then he broke the optic-to-optic contact, looking down at his datapad and hitching his wings in a clear dismissal. Jazz took a few moments longer to look away, letting Smokescreen see his agreement and determination to do his best for the friends who no longer remembered him, despite the awkwardness.

Frowning, Smokescreen considered commenting and then thought better of it, standing and letting himself out of the room. He smoothed the frown away as he walked into the Rec Room, intending to grab a quick cube before getting back to work. Instead he ended up drawn into conversation, first with one group and then with another. Too many old friends wanted to know all about his long meeting with the arrogant, stuck-in-the-mud tactician and his dangerous, mysterious, saboteur lover.

"It's not that Jazz isn't likeable." Smokescreen wasn't even sure who said it, it might have been Wheeljack or Ironhide or any of half a dozen others. "It's that you just get talking to him, start getting to know him, and then he mentions something he thinks you did together, or something you'd swear he couldn't know, or you just look up and see the way Bumblebee and the twins look at him like he's dangerous just sitting there, and you remember that everything you're telling him, he already knows. That it's all built on a lie."

That was the phrase that came up most often – 'living a lie', as if Prowl and Jazz could help that they still held a lifetime of memories and knowledge others would rather they forgot.

He left the room after far longer than he intended, his processor already working hard on a tactical analysis for Prime, a medical one for Ratchet, the first inklings of a plan to distract the crew, and another, far more careful, approach for reintegrating Jazz and Prowl.

He knew he didn't have a lot of time. Already there was a barrier of rumour-driven suspicion, broken trust and mutual frustration growing up between the crew and their second and third. Even without taking Prowl's projections for imminent Decepticon attacks into account, he'd have to work fast to stop the situation souring still farther. Seeing Prowl and Jazz for the dangerous mechs they were through the eyes of strangers was unsettling, all the more so when he was talking to friends – both of him and of their officers – who'd been on the command crew for hundreds of vorns.

And through it all he couldn't help wondering whether Prowl realised that as many times as he'd mentioned 'the Autobots' during their hours-long briefing, he'd never once included himself in their number.


	10. Ratchet: Last Chance

_Many thanks to everyone's who has reviewed in the last couple of days. I'm sorry for not replying individually - I'm on a business trip, which makes internet access a little harder! Please be assured that I've read and appreciated every review and enjoyed all your speculation. Thank you!_

* * *

><p><strong>Ratchet – Last Chance<strong>

The humans had a saying _'A week is a long time in politics'_. It confused Ratchet the first time he heard it. Few things on Cybertron moved slower than Senatorial wrangling, and even amongst less exalted mechs, a human week – a mere half-orn – wouldn't be considered enough time to properly assess most situations, let alone act on them.

As a medic, Ratchet was used to thinking a little faster than that, but even so medical conditions tended to divide straightforwardly between those over and done with in a matter of breems and those he could take a few orns to think over. Before coming to Earth, he'd have had no hesitation in assigning this case to the latter category. After all, Jazz and Prowl were safely home and every mech on the Ark knew who they were, on paper at least. The Autobots were soldiers, their officers' orders would be honoured, the mechs themselves offered due courtesy even if respect, trust and friendship would take rather longer to follow.

But Earth changed all of that. Here on Earth the weather, the wildlife, their human friends – all could change in a spark-beat. Even the Decepticons seemed infected by that urgency, their skirmish rate rising noticeably. There was no way the Autobots could avoid its effects. Two years of living every minute had done more to bond this crew into a close and interdependent fighting team than the dozen vorns that went beforehand. There was a level of trust between members of the Ark crew that Ratchet had rarely seen, and only then between brothers or life-long friends.

The pace of life here, the immediacy and urgency with which humans lived their lives, had changed them all. It had reshaped colleagues into friends, and friends into family.

Jazz and Prowl should have had that family's support to bring them back from the trauma of their capture and mistreatment. Instead they'd had not only been robbed of the deep trust they'd come to expect, but were confronted daily by a cruel mockery of it. Within an Earth week the mistrust and doubt they faced had been reflected back in a growing insularity, depression and paranoia, the speed of their decline understandable to the Earth-based medic where it would have baffled a Cybertronian doctor.

Ratchet dreaded to think just how far it might have gone without Smokescreen. The mech had been working no fewer than three distinct jobs in the seven days since he was roused from stasis. Each and every day, he'd pull a full shift in the tactical office, effectively become Prowl and Jazz's liaison to their Prime and their own crew. That much everyone knew. No one but Prime knew he'd also spend near an hour beyond that closeted with Ratchet, and few mechs appreciated the work he put in during long evenings coordinating the 'leisure activity' he'd so carefully orchestrated.

No wonder Smokey was looking tired.

Ratchet shook his head, venting out a sigh as a shadow fell across his doorway. End of the first rotation. The psychologist was right on time for their unofficial and unadvertised daily conversation. For a change, Ratchet was looking forward to this one. But first, while he was on the topic of Smokescreen's pet project…

"I swear, Smokescreen, if one more mech knocks himself out on a low-hanging stalactite, I'll put a dent in your helm myself," Ratchet grumbled, hefting his favourite wrench and fixing the younger mech with a malevolent gaze.

"All in a good cause, Doc. All in a good cause." Smokescreen shrugged, leaning against the doorframe for a few klicks before slipping further into the room and letting the door slide closed behind him. His disarming grin slid off the medic's armoured plating, and he changed tactics, schooling his face into a serious look. "I mean, the volcano and these caves are in our back yard, and you guys hadn't done more than take a quick look around and block a few of the bigger tunnels. That's a big tactical problem right there. The project had to be done sooner or later."

Ratchet didn't bother to repeat Red Alert's offended observation that the volcano was so far within the Autobots' outer, median and inner perimeters that the battle would be lost by the time any Decepticon reached it. No one, Smokescreen included, was taking his insistence on a 'proper' survey of the Ark/volcano cave system at face value. For most of the mechs it was just a fun challenge to fill their downtime. For the more perceptive officers, it was obvious Smokescreen had an ulterior motive. Ratchet dreaded to think what Jazz and Prowl thought, or how much extra paperwork the frequent caving incidents were generating for the pair of them.

The medic just shook his head. Turning away, he reached for his tools and inspected them for damage, before he laid them down and set to work clearing up the last detritus of that afternoon's self-inflicted rock-fall fiasco. "Have Beachcomber and Hoist worked out what went wrong yet?"

Now Smokescreen's shrug turned rueful. He rubbed a hand over his yellow chevron before drawing it down his face. "The usual – a weak stratum, inadequate shoring and a mech who didn't think through the consequences. Seriously, whose idea was it to give Sideswipe of all mechs a pile driver? I mean… _Sideswipe?_"

Ratchet couldn't help responding to Smokescreen's helpless little smile with one of his own. "If you ever find out, by all means let me know. I've got a special wrench waiting just for them."

A tension drained from the conversation. As much as Ratchet hated patching up the crew, and the Lamborghini twins in particular, and as grumpy as it left him, there was no point in railing at Smokescreen for the twin's antics. Besides, he grudgingly had to admit, the Ark-wide spelunking kick was serving its purpose – or purposes rather.

He cocked a brow ridge, folding his arms across his chest. "It's quiet in the Rec Room these days. No one wants to be sitting around while everyone's busy."

It meant less time for the mechs to brood, less pressure and fewer eyes on their isolated officers, and that had been pretty much top of the list of priorities the psychologist presented Ratchet with almost a week ago. It was good progress. Ratchet managed a flicker of a smile as he went on.

"Pretty much the only folks I see in there most days are Chip and Prowl poring over their chessboard."

The return of the humans was Smokey's doing too. Spike, Chip and Sparkplug were more than happy to renew their acquaintance with the Ark, and the easy enthusiasm with which they'd greeted Jazz and Prowl had caught the attention of more than a few mechs.

Smokey grinned. "I'm not surprised those two get along." He shrugged, aware that he was in the minority in that opinion. "Prowl looks hard sometimes, but he's got a soft spot for folks who are willing to push themselves, willing to put their best into something, even if they're far from guaranteed a win."

"So…" Ratchet let the word stretch out, willing to let his junior take the lead for now.

"Yeah." Smokescreen's lip-plates quirk into a tired smile, open relief in his expression. "It's working out pretty well. Everyone's really starting to get into the cave thing, Ratch." Smokey paused dramatically. "Even Jazz wondered down to pitch in on his day off today." It was a breakthrough, on more levels than one. "Guess 'Comber and Hoist talked him into it – Hoist paired him up with Hound, apparently, and sent them off with a map and instructions before first shift. No one's seen them since."

Ratchet leaned back against his work bench, tilting his head a little uncertainly. Smokescreen waved off the mild concern.

"Neither of those mechs could get lost if they tried." He chuckled. "'Comber called the tactical office just before I came down, getting a bit nervous. Prowl told him there's a forty-two percent chance Hound found a new life-form to study in one of the underground streams, and fifty-six percent that Jazz found an echo he liked and is too busy experimenting with his speakers and music to head on home."

"And the last two percent?"

"Limb-rending injury, processor damage, destruction and deactivation," Smokescreen grinned. "With Decepticons as an outside bet, whatever Red wants to think. But Prowl didn't seem worried, and that's good enough for me." He vented, the air humming out between his denta. "He kind of mentioned that it might be worth reviving Blaster, to see if we can do anything about communications through all this rock."

Ratchet's eyebrows rose. "It's a logical step," he noted. Just as reviving geologist Beachcomber and structural engineer Hoist had been logical when starting the cave survey, and just as Smokescreen himself had been a logical backup for the tactical office. It had nothing to do with the fact that Prime's lieutenants were doing far better with even a small complement of mechs who knew, liked and trusted them around. Or that those same amiable mechs were lending the rest of the crew a reassuring calm in the presence of their officers. Nothing at all.

"Yeah." Smokescreen hesitated. He cycled his vents, letting his casual mask drop. "Seriously, Ratch, it's worth thinking about. Jazz has always been a sociable mech and this isolation's not good for him. What we've got going here – it's a good start, but that's all it is. Adding another friendly face to the mix has got to be a good thing, and Jazz and Blaster always got on well – as Prowl knows full well."

The two mechs' eyes met, an acknowledgement of the still-serious situation there in their gaze. Ratchet broke off first.

"Worth thinking about…" Ratchet's vents cycled quickly. He reached behind him for a datapad lying on the work-bench. He'd been looking forward to telling Smokescreen about this all day, even if his gruff demeanour gave away no sign of his excitement. "…if this doesn't work."

Smokescreen's vents stalled. The psychologist had been in the process of pushing himself up to perch on a med-berth. He slipped back onto his pedes, optics burning, his hands reaching out as if grasping something tangible rather than a mere concept.

"You've found it? A cure?"

The sheer intensity of the question set Ratchet aback, literally. He retreated a step, frowning.

"Wheeljack finally tracked down the key code lines," he allowed. He snorted, shaking his head. "A problem that could've taken us vorns and 'Jack turns around mid-afternoon with "Hey, well will'ya look at that?" as if he's just noticed a mech with a new paint job!"

"Ratch…" Smokescreen pressed, groaning as the medic paused.

"I've spent the last few days re-engineering the virus to retrace its steps, and only its own steps. Everywhere the old code deleted a memory from the registry, this one will recover whatever it can of the data."

"And it works? It's ready to go?"

Ratchet frowned at his subordinate, surprised by the urgency in his voice and the tremble in his usually-rigid blue door-wings.

"It won't be a hundred percent. Any of the dormant memory that's been overwritten in the last month is probably gone for good, but the bulk of it… Yes, it should work. It'll take a while to process through the crew, of course. When it comes to it, we should probably stagger the process so only off-duty crew are infected with the modified virus at any time. But another week or two of testing and – "

"Weeks?" Smokescreen's expression shut down, his hostility tangible and thoroughly confusing. Ratchet had expected Smokey to be pleased, or relieved at the very least, not fuming with suppressed fury. "Slag it, Ratch! You didn't mention this yesterday, or the day before. I know slagging well that you wouldn't have told me now if you weren't already pretty damn sure!"

"The standard tests for a new virus – "

"Standard tests." The psychologist gave a hollow laugh, shaking his head. "And if it was Prime in this situation? If it was Wheeljack, or Ironhide, waiting for your verdict on a matter of life and death, you'd keep them waiting while you ran the 'standard tests'? A set of antiquated procedures, dictated by some ancient medic in the Academy's crystal towers, while the Golden Age shone around them?"

Ratchet found himself backed into a corner, both literally and figuratively. Smokescreen's door-wings were held high now, quivering with his rage. His anger was blended with a fear that suggested the younger mech had been sandbagging all along, hiding the worst of his concern even from Ratchet. Flummoxed, the medic seized on the most emotive of his junior's words.

"Life and death? Okay, so they're not happy, but Jazz and Prowl…"

"Slag it to the Pit, Doc. Another few orns and they might stop jumping out of their plating here on the Ark. A year, and I might just persuade the rest of the crew to stop looking at them like unwelcome intruders. Maybe, just maybe, if I persist for long enough, I'll eventually persuade Prowl to attend the officers-only poker games I have in mind and start to build bridges there. There's even an outside chance I can talk Red Alert and Prime into coming along too. Given, oh, a vorn or two, Jazz and Prowl are in with a chance of earning back the trust and respect they deserve. Even then it won't be the same. They'll never get back the lives they lost."

Smokescreen had flung up his hands as he talked, turning to pace the Medbay. Ratchet vented out, glad of the room.

"I'm talking about a couple of weeks here, Smokescreen. I hardly think…"

"Do you think the Decepticons are going to give Jazz and Prowl a vorn?" Smokescreen went on as if Ratchet hadn't spoken and then stopped, looking at him seriously. "Do you think they'll even give us a few days?" He broke eye-contact, turning back to his pacing. "I've looked over the tactical logs, Ratchet, and, okay, Jazz, Bee and Mirage left them licking their wounds, but quite honestly, given the frequency of attacks here on Earth, I expected to hear from them already. Prowl thinks they'll be on the offensive within the next seventy-two hours, and I'm not second guessing him, no matter how much Prime wants me to. The chances of Megatron and Starscream leaving us alone for another two weeks? Well, I like a long shot, but those are odds even I wouldn't take."

Smokescreen spun back around, glaring. "Just how long do you think our officers will last in battle? It's all very well for Prime to stick to his 'pretend it's not a problem and it'll work out fine' policy and give them back their ranks – Primus knows, it's just about the only thing keeping them sane! – but being told someone is trustworthy, and believing it, processor and spark, when it matters…? They're very different things. Tell me, Ratch, in the heat of battle, with a dozen voices shouting out warnings and instructions, would you take the word of Prowl, who you've known for dozens of kilovorn, over, say, Bumblebee or Inferno who joined this crew barely a decavorn ago?"

The younger mech shook his head, door-wings drooping. "Jazz is Special Ops. It's his job to be where no one expects him, doing dangerous things, and he can't do that if he can't rely on his backup or the battle-plan they're acting on. The last thing he needs – likely the last thing he'll ever see – is some trigger-happy Autobot acting on instinct when an unfamiliar saboteur appears out of the blue."

Ratchet couldn't hide his wince, or pretend, even to himself, that the scenario was unlikely. Smokescreen ignored him, his projections pounding out of him with a relentless brutality.

"Prowl's strategies rely on nanoklick responses, on total trust and total commitment. Do you think he'll get that? How long before Sideswipe and Sunstreaker throw orders out of the window and break rank? How long before some of the mini-bots decide they can do better and set out on their own? When Optimus gets a chance to grapple Megatron, do you think he'll even notice he's leaving a pair of mechs he doesn't know exposed? Would Ironhide guard their flank when there are a dozen warriors he cares about embroiled in a melee in front of him? Jazz and Prowl are going to end up watching each other's backs through sheer necessity, and that'll leave them both open, both vulnerable. We already know they're sure as the Pit both targets."

The shake of Ratchet's head wasn't denial, but rather dismay. "You've given this a lot of thought."

"Trailbreaker and I are tacticians too, Ratchet. We're not as good as Prowl, not nearly as good, but we've talked it over and neither of us is happy with Prowl and Jazz being on battle duty right now."

"But… Prowl has to know that, right?"

"Ops know it too. Bumblebee says Jazz hasn't even tried to suggest a Special Ops tac-outline for our battle projections. He knows damn well that Bumblebee and Mirage can't function as an Ops team without being a hundred percent, unfailingly sure of their leader, and has already told them to count him out rather than risk throwing them off stride. He'll improvise and back them to the hilt, whether they anticipate it or not, but he's not counting on them to return the favour. He'll have told Prowl that."

Smokescreen shook his head. "But they're not going to back off." His fist slammed down into the open palm of his other hand. "They could have walked away, left the Ark, found a way back to Cybertron even. They're good enough to make it work. But they're not going to let the Decepticons have that victory. More than that: they'd never forgive themselves if someone fell in battle because they weren't there, any more than you or Optimus would. They're going into this with their eyes open, throwing the dice and waiting to see how it lands. They know just how slim their chances are." Smokescreen looked down at his hands for a few moments in silence, before looking back up, his gaze sombre. "And I'm not sure they care. Ratch, if you'd just been torn apart, physically and mentally… if you were grieving a lifetime worth of friendships, haunted by what you've lost, knowing it'll take another lifetime to even come close to what you had… wouldn't you err on the reckless side too?"

Ratchet's vocalisor whirred, trying twice to speak before his processor cleared enough to give it proper instructions. His systems ran cold. He looked down at the data-pad in his hand, its access port open and ready.

His companion followed his glance, shaking his head. Smokescreen hesitated, catching Ratchet's optics before pressing on relentlessly. "Doc, be honest with yourself. If you had a nanoklick to choose between patients, with no choice a good one and a member of the Ark crew on your right, would you ever turn left to treat Prowl instead?"

He paused, letting that sink in.

"If it was Optimus or Ironhide in the Decepticon's sights, fighting their way back to sanity, with battle imminent, their life on the line and even the chance of salvation being gradually eroded away, would you make them wait while you ran the 'standard tests' _ad infinitum_?"

The psychologist folded his arms, optics intent and expression grim.

"I'm sorry, Ratchet. Sorry for not talking this through with you before, but until you can answer those questions truthfully and without hesitation, you're just another part of the problem. My patients deserve better."

The Pit of the thing, the slagging _Pit_ of it, was that Smokescreen was completely, a hundred percent, right.

There was a whir of servos in the quiet of Medbay. A panel slid aside on the medic's arm, a cable snaking out and towards the data-pad without further hesitation.

"If this doesn't work, you'll need to call Wheeljack back here. He'll – "

Smokescreen's optics brightened in alarm. He stepped forward, catching Ratchet's arm. "Whoa! I said two weeks was unnecessary and too long. I didn't mean you had to – "

"You were right," Ratchet interrupted simply. He looked down at the data-pad, certain for the first time in weeks what he had to do. "I'm 'pretty damn sure'. It's passed all the initial tests and half the advanced ones already. The standard test sequence is a formality, a safety net to catch mistakes. Wheeljack and I have taken this thing apart and put it back together again line by line over the last orn. There're no mistakes. I'd stake my processor on it." He paused venting a heavy sigh. If he didn't trust his own systems to this, there was no chance he'd try it on anyone else. "I _will_ stake my processor. Jazz and Prowl deserve that much."

He completed the data connection before Smokescreen could dissuade him, assuming the mech would even try. Already he could feel the alien code fighting his medic-grade firewalls, the sensation making him queasy and a little unsteady on his feet.

"Ratch?" Again, Smokescreen caught his arm, for support this time. "Talk to me, Doc. Is this normal? How long will it take?"

Ratchet managed a nod, waving his free arm vaguely as Smokescreen helped him up onto a med berth. "Few breems," he gasped, leaning back on the berth and powering down his optics to block out the unwanted stimulus.

* * *

><p>He lost track of time after that, the viral worm taking all his attention as it logged recovered data file after recovered data file with his central registry. His systems stilled, his processor working through a partial reboot in order to reinitialise his memory algorithms with the new data.<p>

He was feeling kind of odd, light-headed and heavy with knowledge all at the same time, when he became aware of his surroundings once again. His optics cycled sluggishly before fading to darkness once more. It could have been hours since he accepted the infection or mere nanoklicks for all Ratchet knew. Time had no meaning compared to the thick weight in his processor.

Someone was moving beside him, pacing. The movement broke off, replaced by a vehement profanity and a worried voice.

"Slag it! Smokescreen to Wheeljack: I need you in Medbay, now!"

"Smokescreen?" Ratchet blinked, rebooting his optics to bring the blue mech into view. "What…?"

He broke off, frowning, suddenly aware of the urgent realisations fighting for his attention. Optics faded, his attention turning inwards once again. Memories streamed past. At first it was just one or two, chance meetings, a lop-sided smile here, a twitch of door-wings there. Then more, a lifetime of them, the sheer magnitude of what he'd almost lost overwhelming. And then, finally, a smaller, more recent set of memories trickled into his helm, coloured by different emotions, a different perception entirely, to the flood that came before. His spark stuttered as his processor reinterpreted those last memories in a new context. The medical detachment he'd felt towards his patients, the professional curiosity and interest, shattered. His vents stalled, a creeping horror and desperate anxiety fighting for superiority.

A hand thumped his back, hard, retriggering his vents, before dropping to his shoulder.

"Ratch?" Wheeljack's concerned voice and gentle touch broke Ratchet free of his tortured memories. "Primus, Ratch! What were you thinking?" There was a peculiar irony in hearing Wheeljack of all mechs scold him for his impulsive action. Rachet was in no condition to appreciate it. "Talk to me, Ratchet. I need you to tell me what's happening."

Ratchet realised his face had dropped into his hands. He lifted it with an effort, looking up into his friend's blast-mask.

"Frag!" he swore, putting all his horror and dismay into the word.

A tingle ran through him – Wheeljack's inbuilt scanner – and the engineer glanced up at the medical readouts above the berth before looking back down at Ratchet. He hummed thoughtfully, head tilted to one side. "The new virus works?"

"It… it did." Ratchet pushed himself upright, aware of Wheeljack steadying him on one side and Smokescreen on the other. "The things we put them through!" Ratchet shook his head, still fighting the bitter realisation. Wheeljack was giving his old friend a concerned look, surprised by the strength of his reaction. Ratchet could only stare at him, unable to articulate the shame and distress that Wheeljack himself would feel soon enough.

Smokescreen's grip on his arm tightened, the psychologist still worried and not entirely sure that all was happening as it should. Ratchet shook his helm, trying to clear it, as if he could shake the last few memories back into place. He looked up at Smokescreen, at the familiar door-winged silhouette, and felt an urgent need to confirm with his own eyes that Jazz and Prowl were safe back, that his friends were coping and that they hadn't thrown their lives away in some skirmish out of simple despair. "Where are…? No."

No there was something more important. Something he needed to do for his fellow officers that they'd appreciate far more than a rough embrace from their medic. Ratchet reached for his internal com.

"_Prime,"_ he snapped. _"Get your aft down to Medbay! Now!"_

* * *

><p>Wheeljack managed to reboot a full minute before Optimus Prime. The engineer shook his head, lost for words, his head-fins flashing a sickly grey in shock and distress. Ratchet steadied his friend, understanding the strong emotion roiling through him. He still felt it deep in his own tank.<p>

Jazz and Prowl had been through the Pit in the past two orns. Worse, they were still trapped there, devoid of the support of those closest to them. Ratchet's processor had known it, but on an emotional level he hadn't felt anything but a mild intellectual concern. Now his spark cried out for his friends, his family, and the abstract concern had been replaced by a turmoil that mixed horror, pity, deep anxiety and more than a little shame. He'd thought he was a better mech than this. Now he knew the truth all he could do was try to be the best friend possible to Prowl and Jazz.

And that meant pulling Prime through this. If guilt was troubling Ratchet, and apparently Wheeljack too, then it must be near crippling Optimus.

"Prime?"

The big mech blinked up at Medbay's orange ceiling, his optics unfocused, his battle mask hiding his expression but not the tension wracking his body. "I… I ignored them, set them aside… I didn't… couldn't trust them with the lives of my… I didn't see…"

Smokescreen was at his Prime's elbow. The younger mech gave a decidedly inappropriate snigger.

"Gee, and there I had credits on '_It's all my fault_'."

Optimus's cycle of blame and self-loathing broke into irritation. The dazed expression on his hard-to-read face morphed into a frown of disapproval. He pushed himself up to sit on the berth, glaring at Smokescreen, although whether for the gentle sarcasm or the implicit gambling was hard to tell. The diversionary tactician gazed back at him without apology, distraction accomplished and expression becoming serious.

"Optimus, there was nothing you could have done about this," Smokescreen said, with more apparent calm than anyone else in the room felt. "It wasn't your fault, and sure, that's not going to stop you feeling guilty as the Pit. You can brood later, but you've got something more important to do. What matters is making sure Jazz and Prowl know it's over."

He shook his head, folding his arms across his chest, door-wings flaring.

"Slag it, Prime. Your second and third are doing an impossible job, holding on to their authority through force of will alone. The crew are tense and confused. No one's going to cope with you falling to pieces right now – Prowl and Jazz least of all."

Optimus cycled his optics and then his vents, unable to hide his dismay. He sat in silence for a long moment, searching for calm, before nodding. "I'll go to them now." His deep voice rumbled with tightly-controlled emotion, his optics dimming as he looked up at Ratchet. "Where…?"

The soft whir of motors caught every mech present by surprise. The door slid aside on the whisper of sound, leaving two familiar black and white forms framed on the threshold.

"Really, Prowler, I don't need…"

Prowl's level voice cut across Jazz's protest, firm and just a touch amused. "I imagine Smokescreen is still engaged in his daily conference with Ratchet. We can let him know Hoist has asked for him, and allow Ratchet to assess your scrapes at the same time."

Jazz, paint scuffed and marked with the dull orange streaks that suggested a close encounter with the local geology, opened his mouth to answer and froze.

Ratchet imagined that they made for a startling sight: Optimus Prime seated on a berth with Smokescreen close beside him, Wheeljack and Ratchet standing by another berth and both looking a little ill. Certainly the fleeting, barely-there expressions crossing Prowl's face made for interesting reading.

Surprise first, and confusion. Concern for whatever troubled Optimus, followed rapidly by pain and resignation as he realised that, as a near-total stranger, it wasn't his place to ask. Deeper melancholy as he glanced away from the senior mechs in the room, neither seeking nor accepting eye contact, and resentment as his gaze came to rest on Smokescreen and he reassessed the assembly not as a medical check-up but rather as a conference centred on the psychologist and his current subjects.

The second in command's expression shut down, smoothing out into a neutral mask as he nodded an acknowledgement to his Prime. His wings flared from a low droop at his back to stand erect above him, and he angled his body, putting the wall behind him, insofar as possible while moving closer to Jazz.

The saboteur was harder to read. His expression never changed, fixed in an amiable smile, and his visor obscured the focus of his optics. His head moved infinitesimally, letting that concealed gaze sweep the room. It took a trained eye to realise that his attention had moved from Smokescreen to Optimus, his body tensing as he reached the conclusion that he'd been under discussion. His posture changed, his limbs relaxing into a deadly readiness he usually reserved for the training mat or battlefield. A small bounce on the soles of his pedes loosened the cables in his legs and moved him closer to and slightly in front of Prowl, compromising his ready stance for the sake of mutual protection and comfort.

So defensive! So much pain and emotion from them both, and most of it visible only to those who knew them best. Friend or not, most of what Ratchet saw would be passing over Wheeljack's head, and even Smokescreen wouldn't be getting more than the general gist. Prime saw it all though, his optics dimming. Like Ratchet, he'd been learning to read these two mechs long before the human race was a spark in the eyes of its deity.

Like Ratchet's, his expression was one of pure, spark-broken empathy.

Prowl noticed it first, his door-wings slumping a little from their defensive display posture as he tried to make out the thick atmosphere of the room.

"Optimus?" he queried, a faint frown starting to gather on his brow.

"Primus!" Wheeljack's exclamation shattered the silence. The green and white engineer rushed forward, catching Jazz in a tight embrace as he let loose an apologetic babble that wouldn't sound out of place coming from Bluestreak.

The analytical part of Ratchet took a moment to appreciate the control Jazz had over his instincts and the fact that he'd managed not to disable, kill, or otherwise incapacitate their best engineer. Then Jazz slipped Wheeljack's hold, his visor bright as he pressed closer against a stunned Prowl, fending off Wheeljack's continued apologies to them both.

The two black-and-white mechs stared, not moving as Smokescreen stepped forward, ushering Wheeljack past the pair of them and out of Medbay entirely. Only when they were gone did Prowl's optics refocus on the two remaining occupants. The ever-confident gaze was hesitant, almost frightened.

"Optimus?" he repeated. "Ratchet? What…?"

"Prowl." It shouldn't be possible for so deep and loud a voice to also be so gentle. Optimus Prime managed it. "Jazz. I am so sorry for all you've been through. From Decepticons… from Autobots… from me." He paused, raising a hand towards his friends in a gesture at once apologetic and beckoning. His rich voice rumbled through their frames like the voice of Primus as he spoke two simple words: "We remember."

Prowl's optics flared, his engine rattling as it raced to support his strained systems.

Jazz remained silent, pressed tight into Prowl's side. For a few seconds the only sound audible in the Medbay was the harsh noise of his vents, and then his visor retracted, revealing optics that spoke of exhaustion, fear and a painful vulnerability.

Ratchet wasn't usually given to tactile displays. He was more comfortable with a wrench in hand and a rough word on his lip-plates. This wasn't the time for that.

The mechs in front of him were officers and warriors. They'd survived an ordeal Ratchet shuddered to think of and hadn't broken. Even now, they stood tall and with an undeniable power… but their strength was a brittle one at best. Their postures were still defensive, their emotions under tight control, as if they daren't risk believing, not yet.

Ratchet understood. Just as he had needed to see them himself, despite knowing they were safe, so his friends needed to see proof before they would believe. Proof that Optimus and Ratchet truly knew them, truly valued the friendships and the mechs themselves. He gave a brief hum, sweeping forward slowly enough not to spook Jazz, not saying anything until he stood in front of the two younger mechs and laid a reassuring hand on the shoulder of each. It wasn't quite an embrace – the last thing he wanted was to unsettle them still further – but he drew the pair a little closer, squeezing gently as he tried to convey all his affection, concern and apologies in the simple gesture.

"Everything's going to be all right," he told them, determined to make it true.


	11. Bluestreak: Turning the Tables

_Author's Note: This has been a lot of fun. I've been amazed and delighted by the response this story has received and I'm very glad that so many people seem to have enjoyed the roller coaster ride I've inflicted on you all. Thank you all for your comments and reviews. I hope you enjoy the ending. I dithered over who to give it to, but it seemed only natural to bring this story full circle..._

* * *

><p><strong>Bluestreak – Turning the Tables<strong>

The Seekers were targeting Prowl.

Bluestreak ducked, his rifle held tight against his chest as the trines screamed overhead, far too low for this rugged, crevasse-ridden terrain, taking it in turns to strafe their sniper post. Their position was open and exposed, perched atop a cliff overlooking the battle, with only a small hillock at their backs. Any other skirmish and it would have been workable. With Prowl the subject of a special ire and Seeker-fire raining down in a never-ending torrent, it was more than a little scary.

Gritting his denta and scowling up the sky, he raised his helm, trying to steal a glance at the main battlefield in the valley below. Things weren't going much better there. The Decepticons had split the Autobot forces into several small clusters. Prime was distracted, drawn off to one side to face Megatron. Ironhide's team were pinned down by Soundwave and the cassetticons. The Twins couldn't help. Bluestreak scanned the field for the red and gold pair, worried for them until he saw them being herded to the other side of the valley and halfway up its walls, Rumble shaking the ground under their tyres, Reflector's components dazzling and disorienting them and the Seekers firing occasional pot-shots in their direction on the backswing from strafing Prowl's group. It was anyone's guess where the Constructicons were or what they were doing, only Megatron's yelled order for them to 'get it ready to fire!' alerting anyone to their presence in the first place. The Autobot Special Ops were just as elusive. Bluestreak had lost track of them several breems ago, although quite honestly that wasn't unusual in a battle.

It was a bit more unusual for him to be quite so worried for his own armour. His rifle jerked, the shot he'd aimed down towards Rumble going wide as Thundercracker lived up to his name, dragging a shockwave strong enough to rattle Bluestreak's processor in his wake. The young gunner crouched low, tucking his door-wings in close to his back as weapons fire landed a few feet away, kicking gravel up in a dense, abrasive spray.

Ducking beside him, Prowl scowled. The black and white mech fired two shots to scatter the Seekers streaking overhead, and then a quick, precise series of blasts at the hillock behind them, undermining the slope. He knocked Bluestreak down, rolling them both to his left, calling out instructions for Red Alert, Inferno and Hound to move right. A brief landslide later, there was a trench carved in the hillside, fallen dirt piled up in front of it like a crude but serviceable rampart. Prowl subspaced his acid-pellet gun in a smooth motion, reaching out with his empty hand to pull Bluestreak to cover in the trench.

The gunner scrambled after him without hesitation, his door-wings trembling slightly with relief to find himself sheltered at last. He mustered a thin smile as the others joined them with relief and not a little astonishment. Prowl's expression didn't change. He nodded an acknowledgement, his quick processor already moving on. A stream of instruction issued from him, com signals diverting the bulk of the Ark crew away from the base of the cliff and ground zero for any missed shots or falling rocks.

Bluestreak and Red Alert settled side by side, all but flat on their chestplates, their rifles propped on the mounded dirt in front of them, optics scanning the field for targets. Prowl's acid pellet gun was in his hands, but he didn't join them. Not yet. His optics narrowed, his door-wings held high despite the flying gravel. He inspected the battlefield below from their new cover, his voice and expression calm as he contacted each mech in turn, positioning them, making sure each was ready when called upon.

Bluestreak acknowledged his own orders with a com ping, glancing sidelong at his mentor as the Coneheads' machine-gun fire had them ducking for cover once again. He trusted Prowl, completely and utterly. He still felt a warm glow of joy and an overwhelming flood of relief at the knowledge that every mech on the field could say the same. Even so, he couldn't help wondering what his mentor was waiting for.

Somewhere off to the south-east, there was a blast of explosives. A column of flame and smoke rose from a side gully Bluestreak hadn't even noticed. The expanding, turbulent fireball hit the Elite trine as they vectored for another strafing run, scattering the three jets to opposite corners of the battlefield. Bluestreak ducked instinctively. Prowl didn't so much as flinch. He ignored the Seekers, his eyes lingering on the flames just long enough to watch a Porsche burst from the heart of the fire, soot blackening its white panels, blue racing stripe glowing with reflected light as laser fire followed him.

"_Scratch one superweapon du jour."_ Jazz's cool voice over the com-lines didn't even hint at his hot situation. _"All yours, Prowler."_

Bluestreak swung his rifle to cover the saboteur, worried by the four battered Constructicons chasing him onto the battlefield, and the three Coneheads breaking off to streak down the valley and target the Porsche. Prowl caught his protégé's rifle by the barrel, dragging it back to cover Soundwave with a grim smile.

"_Go,_" he said quietly, his com reaching every Autobot on the field.

Bluestreak fired on the command, his shot and Prowl's hitting either side of Soundwave's chest with a force that drove the Decepticon back several steps and onto his knees, before snapping his aim up towards Thundercracker as his instructions required. A single, well-aimed shot and the Seeker was struggling to stay aloft, limping into an airborne retreat, smoke streaming from his left thruster.

Focussed, concentrating hard on his assigned task, Bluestreak was only half-aware of Bumblebee and Mirage breaking cover. The two Special Ops agents laid down a carpet of sharp caltraps that tore at Constructicon tyres, even as Jazz launched himself into the air, passing above them with mere inches to spare. Yellow Beetle and blue Ligier matched speed as they crossed paths below their commander, sliding either side of the Constructicons and firing Wheeljack's latest explosive pellets into their chassis and combination joints.

Landing on all four wheels, Jazz slid into a screaming handbrake turn. He transformed mid-slide, pulling his blaster from subspace, leaning back and painting a line of energon burns down the side of Thrust's fuselage. The Conehead faltered, breaking off his attack, just as Sunstreaker and Sideswipe leapt from the cliff-top opposite onto a pair of inviting wingspans, red and gold warriors grappling Dirge and Ramjet to the ground with ruthless efficiency.

Laser fire lit up every corner of the battlefield, forcing Bluestreak to cycle his optics. He wasn't the only one. The Seeker trines were scattered, disoriented, no longer intent on Prowl's group. A flicker of light burst from Hound's shoulder-mounted projector and suddenly Bluestreak found himself and the other snipers shielded from view in their trench. Starscream's fury sounded to the heavens as a dozen images of each of them, Prowl included, appeared moving across the battlefield as if rejoining the main battle. Skywarp echoed his trinemate's angry shout, flickering purple light marking his progress as he moved from illusory group to illusory group firing at each in turn. The flash of light was rather more marked as Skywarp's warp field met Trailbreaker's force projector mid-teleport. The black-and-lavender Seeker was thrown upwards, knocked offline by the clash of energies, and only Starscream's quick dive and grab stopped his trinemate from plummeting to the ground.

A roar from Ironhide dragged Bluestreak's attention down from the aerial drama unfolding above him to the field below. No longer pinned down, the big red mech grappled an injured Soundwave, while Cliffjumper, Brawn and the other mini-bots broke in a wave over the faster-moving cassettes behind him. Driving at full speed through the chaos, Smokescreen laughed aloud as he lived up to his name, wrapping the Reflector gestalt in blinding, clinging smoke before circling Megatron where he grappled Optimus. A choking black cloud engulfed both titanic figures, blocking their view of the battlefield.

Megatron's angry roar rolled across the field as Optimus backed out of the thick smoke, fed sensor data by a pre-warned Red Alert, and hosed down from the cliff-top by Inferno. Dripping with dissipating agent, but clear-opticed, Optimus watched Megatron fight against nothing. The Decepticon leader thrashed in the magnetized smoke, searching for his adversary and calling for Starscream, Soundwave, or anyone, to tell him what was happening.

"What's happening?" Optimus Prime allowed himself a brief chuckle, hands on his hips as he watched his disoriented enemy struggle. His optics surveyed the field, taking in the column of smoke from the gully, the falling Seekers, crippled Constructicons and overwhelmed ground-based mechs.

Bluestreak stared too. A mere half-breem before, the Decepticons had been winning this fight, their aim obscure and their forces keeping the Autobots at bay in half a dozen small engagements. Bluestreak himself had been ducking for cover, too distracted to take in more than the briefest of glimpses of the battlefield. From the way the rest of the Autobots were cycling their optics, venting hard as they stood over cowed foes, none of them could quite believe how quickly a single word from their tactician had turned the tide of battle.

Optimus looked up at the cliff-top, meeting Prowl's calm optics as his second in command stepped out from cover.

"I believe my second and third have just provided a demonstration of precisely why slagging them off is a very bad idea."

Prowl's doorwings flicked back, his expression not entirely approving of his leader's language, even as Jazz's warm laughter drifted up from mid-field. The saboteur looked up, his visor meeting Prowl's optics, before both frowned. They spun as one, blaster fire and acid pellet splashing across opposite wings just as Starscream powered into a howling, fury-driven dive towards Prowl's cliff-top viewpoint.

The red and white Seeker's roar of anger turned into a scream of pain. He fell, crippled, dropping unconscious into Megatron's arms just as Smokescreen's miasma began to clear.

Optimus Prime had flinched at Starscream's sudden attack. He reached for his weapon, together with half the Autobot army, before realising his lieutenants had everything well under control. There was a moment of total silence before a rising cheer broke from every Autobot throat. Prime looked up proudly, his voice soft.

"And why they'll never be forgotten, as long as there are Cybertronians left to tell the tale."

Megatron arms quivered with his fury, holding his unconscious second in a grip tight enough to dent the Seeker's armour.

"Decepticons! Retreat!"

* * *

><p>"Ya alright there, Prowler?" Jazz's question held a note of concern as Bluestreak, Prowl and the others joined the party in the gorge below.<p>

Prowl flicked his door-wings, his expression unimpressed but a faint smile playing across his lips.

"I wasn't the one driving out of a fireball," he noted, scanning the saboteur up and down.

"Just doin' what I hadta, mech."

"You did far more than that, Jazz," Prime told him, hands on his hips as he looked down fondly at his saboteur. He glanced at Prowl, including him with a look. "As you always do. I am proud to be your commander, and your friend."

Prowl hummed thoughtfully. Raising a brow ridge, he glanced at Jazz and got a nod of agreement.

"Prime, we're most grateful for your words, but I believe Jazz and I have something that needs saying at this point. If we may…?"

Bluestreak fell back a bit in the crowd, nervous of the irritated set of Prowl's door-wings. Smokescreen came up beside him, watching with interest as Prime nodded, waving for his second to address the listening crowd. Jazz beat him to it, leaning back against the nearest cliff face with a casual air and raising an idle hand to adjust his visor as he spoke.

"Well now, we all know Prowler here works too hard, and I guess I'm grateful you're all so keen t' look out for him, but keep bringin' him energon every other breem and one of these days he'll give in, drink it all an' show ya what an overcharged tactician's really like." He smirked. "And while that'll be a lot of fun, I think Smokey could do without the counsellin' it'll spark."

Prowl cycled his vents, folding his arms.

"And while Jazz is fond of human music, we know from experience that he is unlikely to lose his processor if the music in the Rec Room drops below a hundred decibels from time to time. I suspect our human friends _will_ go insane if it does not."

Jazz chuckled. "Detailed reports may be manna from heaven for my mech, but I've seen the highlights of what ya've all been writin' him lately. Nice to see ya tryin' so hard, but believe me, even Prowler doesn't need t' know the exact shade of dirty tan mud you guys got in your wheel treads, or how many astroseconds it took the human ya saw on patrol to cross the road."

"Sideswipe." Prowl folded his arms, pinning the worried-looking twin with a stern gaze. "While I appreciate your recent restraint, your rather… unconventional… approach to entertaining your fellow mechs is part of who you are. Suppressing it is having a de-motivational effect on the crew, not to mention leaving me to handle a very bored Jazz."

"Mech just doesn't want t' admit he likes a good challenge too," Jazz added with a grin. "I'm not the only one t' be gettin' bored."

Prowl gave his mate a stern look, although his wings fluttered a little in amusement. He turned to Prime, tilting his head a little to look up at the much larger Autobot before sweeping his optics across the assembled Ark crew. "Mechs, we can honestly say it is a joy and a privilege to serve with each and every one of you."

Jazz laughed, ambling forward to stand beside his mate and sweeping an arm around Prowl's waist.

"Yep, love ya all. But, man, the play-yard declarations? They're gettin' just a bit embarrassin'. An' I aint a mech that embarrasses eas'ly."

"To say the least," Prowl finished with a hint of a fond smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Bluestreak stared. Sideswipe's stunned, open-mouthed expression did a good job of speaking for them all. Ratchet was the first to break the silence, venting a sigh before rubbing the base of his broad, grey chevron. He looked up with a wry expression.

"We've been trying too hard, haven't we?"

Jazz offered him a lopsided smile. "By a turbo-kitty whisker or two. We're not made of glass, mechs. And yeah, we missed you too. But we're back. We're good. Normal might take a bit longer t' get to, but it's worth a try, don't'cha think?"

Bluestreak blinked, his door-wings wilting as he realised he'd been as much to blame for the excesses as any of the guilt-ridden and overly attentive mechs on the Ark. Smokescreen patted his back, a broad smile on his face. Glancing up, Bluestreak frowned at Smokey's obvious pleasure. The slightly taller Praxian leaned down pitching his words for Bluestreak only.

"And it's about time!" he breathed. "Look at them, Blue. Just look."

Bluestreak's door-wings quivered and rose, first in confusion and then in growing delight as he realised what Smokey was getting at. Prime was looking at his feet, shifting guiltily. As Bluestreak watched, Prowl's hand came up to touch his leader's arm in a gesture of forgiveness, his expression one of fond exasperation. The expression lingered as his gaze swept the crew he and Jazz had just scolded like errant younglings. For the first time since this whole mess started, when Bluestreak watched the pair of them, he saw two relaxed mechs, confident and in command, buoyed not just by the crew's affection, but by a respect that was given without hesitation, and earned by right. For the first time in far too long, he saw them truly take control of their lives.

Smokescreen hummed in satisfaction. He folded his arms, surveying the fretting crew with a rueful shake of his head. The psychologist leaned forward, hissing a comment to Sideswipe in a stage whisper every mech could hear.

"You do realise that's as close to permission as you're ever going to get? And you're still standing there like a petrified turbo-rat?"

Sideswipe blinked, shaken from his stupor, and nudged his golden twin. They looked up at Prowl's raised brow-ridge and the broad grin on Jazz's face. Three klicks later, two Lamborghinis hit the road, dust billowing behind them, and whoops of glee floating back as they headed back to the Ark, already working on a plan.

The rumble of laughter that followed them felt good – for every mech but one. Red Alert's helm fins were sparking, his eyes following the dust trail out of the valley. "It's all in a good cause," the Security Director muttered to himself, words clearly audible across the fading roar of high performance engines. "It's worth it."

"That it is," Ironhide rumbled in agreement, throwing a companionable arm around Red's shoulders and guiding him a little closer to both Inferno and Ratchet. "It's about damn time we all stopped feelin' sorry for ourselves and started actin' like grown mechs." He glanced after the fleeing twins and gave an amused snort. "Or sparklin's if that's th' way it's gotta be."

Prime smiled behind his blast mask, the expression in his optics a little rueful. He turned to survey the battlefield, ignoring the bustle behind him as the mechs arranged themselves for the homewards journey. "I have to admit, I'm feeling a little more sorry for the Decepticons right now. Megatron was… unimpressed by their performance today."

Prowl snorted, moving up beside him, flicking his wingtips dismissively. "I would hardly rate them highly myself, Prime."

"Ooh," Jazz grinned. "I feel a game of Rate the Decepticon Assault comin' on."

Ratchet frowned at him as all around mechs began to transform, ready to head back to the Ark. "Do I even want to know the rules?"

"Man, only that it involves high grade, the Rec Room, marks outta ten and Prowler's private _'funniest 'Con cock-up'_ movie reel."

"That's training material, Jazz," Prowl corrected, folding down into Datson form beside the already-revving Porsche, the pair of them ambling into place a little behind and to either side of their leader's semi-truck alt-mode. "It behoves us to learn from Decepticon mistakes."

"It behoves us t' laugh our afts off when they make a royal screw-up."

Bluestreak transformed, Smokescreen beside him, and both moved up to fall into line behind the bickering officers. Bumpers and spoilers nudged them as they passed, a general camaraderie passing from mech to mech, relaxing them as they hadn't relaxed since Bluestreak had found himself pounding on two locked doors almost a month before. Now Blue felt the tension draining from his frame, and he accelerated slightly until he was almost touching Prowl's bumper. He thought perhaps he and Prime were the only mechs to hear the officers' exchange go on, its tones softer.

"Today was hardly a screw-up in the classic sense, Jazz."

"Ya kicked their afts, love, and that's close enough for me."

Prowl was silent for a long moment.

"They deserved it."

Jazz nudged closer, door to door, the two engines vibrating in perfect synch. "That they did, Prowler. That they did. Let's just get home, okay? I've gotta party t' plan and you've gotta pair of twins with a two breem head start."

Prowl sighed in weariness, satisfaction, anticipation or some combination of all three. He nudged back before accelerating, Datson and Porsche peeling to either side of their Prime to take the lead. Optimus didn't stop them, and Bluestreak didn't follow, giving the pair the space they'd asked for but at their backs all the way.

Prowl pinged the column, checking the status of the crew. Bluestreak responded with a com ping of his own, close enough to detect Prime's acknowledgement a moment before Jazz gathered them all with his smooth voice.

"Autobots, roll for home!"

* * *

><p><strong>The End<strong>


End file.
